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DISCOURSES 



NATURE, EVIDENCE, AND MORAL VALUE, 



DOCTRINE OF THE TRINITY, 



By HUBBARD W1NSLOW, 

Pastor of Bowdoin Street Church, Boston, 



BOSTON: 

PUBLISHED BY PERKINS, MARVIN & CO. 
PHILADELPHIA: HENRY PERKINS. 



1834. 






Entered according to act of Congress, in the year 1834, 

By Perkins, Marvin & Co. 
in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of Massachusetts. 



LC Control Number 




tm P 96 027749 



L 



TO THE PEOPLE 

OF HIS 

MINISTERIAL CHARGE, 

THESE DISCOURSES ARE 

RESPECTFULLY AND AFFECTIONATELY 

INSCRIBED, 

BY THEIR PASTOR. 



CONTENTS. 



DISCOURSE I. 

Introductory Remarks, and statement of the Doctrine, , . 5 

DISCOURSE II. 
Deity and Personality of Christ, . . . . , . .38 

DISCOURSE III. 

Deity and Personality of the Holy Spirit, , , . . 68 

DISCOURSE IV. 
Moral value of the Doctrine, ...,.,.. 90 

DISCOURSE V. 
Moral value of the Doctrine, ........ 113 

Appendix, r ', , • 143 



DISCOURSE L 



INTRODUCTORY REMARKS, AND STATEMENT 
OF THE DOCTRINE. 



1 Thessalonians v. 21. 

PROVE ALL THINGS. 

Duty requires us to bring all our religious 
opinions to the infallible test of evidence. We 
must prove both their truth, and their moral 
value. This demands a judicious and faithful 
exercise of all the powers of the human mind. 
That mind is a moral agent ; and hence, so 
nicely constructed and poised are the various 
parts of its wonderful mechanism, that unless 
applied to the investigation of religious subjects, 
with a well directed moral, as well as intellec- 
tual action, it tends to lose its exact balance, 
1 



and become incapable of justly appreciating evi- 
dence. Imagination, or will, or prejudice,, as- 
sumes undue ascendancy. ; thus disposing it to 
doubt where it ought to believe, and to believe 
where it ought to doubt. 

In subjects purely intellectual, such as math- 
ematics, geometry, and other abstract sciences, 
which take the assent of the mind by force, 
moral causes cannot effectually operate. But 
in the investigation of all other subjects, whether 
secular or religious, the exercise of the moral, 
as well as the intellectual powers of the mind, 
are necessarily so involved as to affect its de- 
cisions. Hence, the man who would retain a 
sound mind, and safely ascend the path to 
knowledge, must rightly use both his intellect, 
by applying it to subjects in the order of nature, 
and according to its ability, and his heart, by 
giving it implicitly to evidence, wherever that 
evidence may conduct it. 

Regardless of this, many employ their minds 
as though they were incapable of receiving in- 
jury. They neither exercise discretion in the 
selection of subjects adapted to their stage of 
mental growth, nor caution in conducting the 
examination of them. They throw their minds 
at random upon every subject which happens to 
come in their way ; but allow them to bear with 



steady and patient action upon none. They 
sometimes even plunge headlong into the midst 
of elements in which they are incompetent to 
move, entirely regardless of harm. In conduct- 
ing the examination of subjects, they fear not 
an unseasonable encounter with all imaginary, 
as well as real obstructions, in the way of evi- 
dence. How .many thus spend their strength 
in fighting a shadow ! They continue looking 
upon it till it becomes to them a reality, filling 
their mental vision, and thus hiding solid facts 
completely from their sight. They thus learn to 
cavil and resist evidence, where they ought to 
employ patient investigation. 

It is unhappy for him who indulges such a 
habit of mind, even in respect to subjects of 
worldly and ordinary importance; but particu- 
larly unhappy it is to all concerned, that any 
thing like this should have ever found admis- 
sion into the sacred inclosures of religion. 
Subjects involving the eternal interests of men, 
are certainly of too momentous importance to 
be thus treated. The_y urgently claim a judi- 
cious, candid, thorough attention. In disposing 
of such subjects, to first ' prove all things,' and 
then ' hold fast that which is good,' is no less 
obedient to sound wisdom than to a divine 
precept. 



8 

Perhaps nothing is more distant from the 
spirit of this precept, than the habit of per- 
petually dwelling upon objections. With more 
or less difficulties all subjects are fraught ; and 
it becomes an important part of our discipline to 
hold our minds, notwithstanding, in a posture of 
sober inquiry, until we see truth established, 
whatever it be, on a basis of convincing evi- 
dence. If, in attempting to come at a result to 
which evidence is conducting us, an objection 
strongly obtrude itself on our attention, we 
should examine it, scrutinize it narrowly, learn 
definitely its nature and strength, so as to cor- 
rectly appreciate its force. And there is a 
canon of logic, which, rightly applied, will al- 
ways carry the mind safely through such diffi- 
culties. It is this; — What we do not know, 
can never disprove what we do know. Conse-* 
quently, when we are looking for evidence to 
substantiate any fact, if an objection to the ex- 
istence of that fact be presented, which we can 
demonstrate to be valid, our inquiry is at an 
end. The fact has no existence, and there is 
of course no real evidence to support it, But 
if the objection cannot be demonstrated to be 
valid, we should turn away from it to a thorough 
examination of the evidence of the fact in ques- 
tion ; and if this be found conclusive, the ob- 



jection is then annihilated. It existed, not to 
destroy evidence and forbid belief, but to dis- 
cipline our minds in their pursuit of truth. 
That mind is truly noble, which marches through 
such obstructions to the truth, and then seizes 
and holds it with an entire and eternal grasp. 
In so doing it evinces character, such as prom- 
ises an everlasting growth in knowledge. 

Public discussion and controversy on the 
topics of Christian science, are doubtless highly 
serviceable in awakening dormant energies of 
mind, eliciting truth, exposing error, and clear- 
ing away rust and rubbish. But we should 
be duly apprised that there are also certain evils 
incidental to it, that we may guard against 
them. When any Christian doctrine is made a 
boon of very special public contention, and par- 
ties are arrayed for or against it, at first per- 
haps from merely adventitious causes many be- 
come inclined to the one side or the other. 
This inclination will subsequently tend to sway 
their judgment, and materially affect its de- 
cisions. 

There is also a tendency in religious con- 
troversy to distort the features of Christianity. 
A disputed doctrine attracts to itself more than 
its due proportion of attention, and consequently 
other doctrines of equal importance are over- 
1 * 



10 

looked. One feature of the Christian system 
thus assumes too much prominence in the pub- 
lic estimation, and the symmetry of the entire 
whole is spoiled. A natural consequence is, 
that Christian character, formed after this dis- 
torted image of Christianity, and not after the 
perfect model which God has presented, be- 
comes also distorted. Even the conscientious 
Christian, whose heart is faithful to God — instead 
of maturing under the harmonious action of all 
religious truth, bearing equally on the elements 
of his moral being, and thus growing up erect 
in the beautiful symmetry of a perfect man in 
Christ Jesus — by being subjected to the undue 
influence of some truths, and failing to receive 
a due proportion of influence from others, is 
often of deformed and unnatural growth. That 
is indeed a noble oak, that can grow straight 
upward, and always stand firm and erect, when 
the wind is perpetually beating upon it from one 
direction.* 

It is well known, that evidence for or against 
a particular doctrine will have more or less 
weight in a man's mind, according to the po-< 
sition which it has maintained in the formation 
of his character. But the danger to a correct 

* Note A. 



II 

decision of the judgment from this source, or 
even from a public commitment to a party, is 
not all. Many minds are prone to acquire a kind 
of morbid sensitiveness on controverted subjects. 
They cannot brook opposition ; and being also 
unable to meet it with argument, a fever is 
brought on. They hence never bring to such 
subjects a healthy effort, and consequently, al- 
though they might be convinced of truth under 
other circumstances, they will not under these. 
Indeed, in such a world as this, it demands no 
ordinary degree of intellectual vigor and in- 
dependence, to rise superior to all the impulses 
of passion and prejudice, and place the mind in 
a posture of candid inquiry for truth. But it 
must be done, or God will be disobeyed, and 
our eternal interests will suffer. 

To encourage and sustain such an attempt, 
let us consider that truth is what it is, and ever 
will be such, whether we wish or believe it so 
or not ; and moreover, that any other than a 
sincere desire to learn and obey divine truth, is 
infinitely unworthy of immortal minds, on their 
way to eternity. 

If, on as candid and thorough an investigation 
as we are able to institute, the doctrine of the 
trinity be found to be supported by conclusive 
evidence, let us firmly believe it, and with it all 



12 

the momentous truths which spring from it ; if 
it be found to be not thus supported, let us 
forever reject it. Let us cherish but one desire 
in this matter, and let that be to know the truth 
and obey it. Why should we cherish any other? 
We meet here, not as combatants on an arena 
of theological controversy, but as friends and 
fellow-pilgrims on the way to eternity. What- 
ever there be important for us to learn respect- 
ing the high relations of our immortal being, we 
wish to learn. Truth, and only truth, here, is 
equally important to us all. On a subject thus 
involving the amazing interests of our eternity, 
we cannot find it in our hearts to dispute." 
Every emotion that stirs within, would rather 
prompt us to sit with entire docility at the feet 
of the merest child, if we could thereby learn 
any thing respecting the great and glorious 
God, and the claims of his being, character 
and government upon us. 

I am not disposed to assume the responsibility 
of dictating your religious faith. It is the privi- 
lege and the duty of every man to examine evi- 
dence, and judge for himself, responsible for his 
belief to God. To his own Master he standeth 
or falleth. The extent of my duty is to lay 
before your minds the evidence in the case, and 
thus leave you to think upon it, and judge for 



13 

yourselves. Let each of us, then, feel that he 
has a necessity laid upon him to settle this great 
question, to settle it for his own soul, and to 
settle it in such a way as to stand the fires of 
the last day, and the light of eternity. Most 
certain it is, that no man can permit his mind 
to repose in indolent ignorance, or lie under the 
dominion of prejudice, in respect to so moment- 
ous a subject, without incurring immense guilt 
and danger. God requires of us, both intellec- 
tually and morally, according to our capabilities. 
What we can know of him, we ought to know. 
Our intellectual powers are indeed limited, and 
there must of consequence be a limit to our 
knowledge ; but because we cannot know evejy 
thing respecting God, we have not therefore an 
apology for knowing nothing. While forbidden 
to attempt a step beyond the present limit pre- 
scribed to our minds, we are required to ad- 
vance fully up to it. • Not to come up to it, were 
indolence ; to attempt a step beyond, w T ere pre- 
sumption. 

If you intrust to your steward a sum of money, 
with directions how to employ it in your service, 
there are two ways in which he may fail of his 
duty. He may fail to employ it at all, and thus 
incur the charge of indolence, like the wicked 
and slothful servant in the gospel ; or he may 



14 

embark with it in unauthorized speculations, 
and thereby lose the whole, and thus incur the 
charge of presumption. In either case, he is 
guilty. 

God has committed to us limited powers of 
intellect, and thus fixed bounds beyond which 
our earthly knowledge cannot pass. He has 
given to us our first lesson, commanding us to 
learn that faithfully, and wait his motion for the 
second. We may make no intellectual effort 
upon it, and thus resemble the idle school-boy, 
who sleeps away his time over his lesson ; or 
we may attempt what is at present beyond our 
reach, and thus resemble the silly child, who 
sometimes affects to read before he has learned 
his alphabet. Hence, a mind trained to ac- 
curate habits will always endeavor to draw the 
line of demarkation distinctly between what can 
be known, and what cannot be known, in our 
present state. 

As a general rule, facts, and not the modes of 
facts, or in other words, the manner in which 
they come into being or exist, are included in 
our present compass of knowledge. This may 
be familiarly illustrated by a case in physical 
science. We know that the rays of light, by 
falling upon the eye, and passing through the 
chrystaline humor, and converging to a focal 



15 

point upon the retina in the optic nerve, pro- 
duce in us the perception of seeing. We know 
the fact that such a perception is produced, but 
how it is produced, we are utterly unable to 
determine. We might instance a multitude of 
similar cases in physical science, but will pro- 
ceed directly to notice some of those which more 
immediately concern us as religious beings. 

God has revealed to us the fact, that we shah 1 
continue to exist as intelligent, conscious beings, 
after death — that death does not extinguish our 
being, but changes the mode of it. What that 
other mode of existence is, no man in this state 
can know. Yet the revealed fact is perfectly 
intelligible, and fraught with amazing import- 
ance. To deny the immortality of the soul, 
simply because we do not know how it exists 
when separated from the body, were no less 
absurd, than to deny that the rays of light upon 
the optic nerve produce in us the sensation of 
seeing, because we do not know how they do it. 
The proof of the two facts rests upon different 
kinds of testimony, to be sure — that of the one 
on the testimony of our consciousness, that of 
the other, on the declaration of God. But any 
presumption for or against the facts, resulting 
from simply our not knowing how to explain the 
manner of them, is as strong in the one case as 



16 

in the other. So that, if the positive evidence 
in the two cases be equally good, the facts are 
equally certain. — Or, in other words, admitting 
the truth of the Bible, if the testimony of God 
be as good evidence as the testimony of our 
consciousness, it is just as certain that the soul 
is immortal, as it is that we see the light of 
day — just as certain that we shall exist forever, 
as it is that we exist now. 

But suppose that one suffer his mind to dwell 
exclusively on the difficulty of conceiving of the 
mode of the soul's existence after death. The 
body is disorganized, and has returned to dust, 
and disappeared. All that constituted the liv- 
ing, acting man, seems to be lost. ' What can 
remain 1 any thing ? How can this be 1 ' He 
imperceptibly begins to doubt the fact ; and if 
he hold his mind long in this posture, he will 
doubt in good earnest. Many have done so, 
until they have actually doubted their immor- 
tality ! But here comes in an important aux- 
iliary to evidence. The man wishes for im- 
mortality. He does not therefore dismiss the 
subject rudely, because of an apparent difficulty, 
for he has a desirable interest involved in it. 
He therefore looks for evidence of the fact of 
his immortality, and finds it in the sacred Scrip- 
tures. In this case, he is willing to receive 



17 

testimony from that source ; and correctly con- 
cludes to accredit the fact of his future exist- 
ence, although he knows nothing respecting the 
mode of it. 

Take another instance. God has revealed to 
us the fact, that he exists in every point of the 
universe at the same moment. It is an import- 
ant fact, and every accountable being ought to 
know it ; but no man, in his present state, can 
know how God thus exists. It is a mode of 
existence so entirely different from ours, which 
limits us to one particular spot at a given time, 
that we can form no conception of it. 

But let us suppose that one could hold his 
mind for a considerable time upon an abstract 
inquiry into the mode of the divine omnipre- 
sence. — ' A Being present in every point of the 
universe at the same moment ! — occupying this 
single place in the perfection of his being, and 
yet filling heaven and the heaven of heavens ! 
How can this be ? I do not exist in this man- 
ner ; how can God ? ' He would soon begin to 
doubt the fact, were it not for the impossibility 
of his long abstracting his mind thus from the 
evidence of the fact. The evidence of the di- 
vine omnipresence is also in this single place, 
and in every place. Every object which his 
2 



18 

eye does or can behold in the universe, is a 
perpetual mirror, reflecting the image of God ; 
and he must see it. As a reasonable and in- 
telligent man, he is therefore, by his inability to 
escape the evidence, compelled to admit the 
fact of God's omnipresence, although he cannot 
perceive the mode of it. 

Take another instance. God has revealed to 
us the fact, that there is a peculiar distinction 
in the Godhead, by virtue of which he sustains 
certain important relations to his moral king- 
dom, the forms of which are to us developed 
under the appellations of Father, Son, and Holy 
Ghost ,' and that these three are in some way 
so united, as to constitute one Being. It is an 
important fact for us to know, because it is es- 
sentially connected with the whole system of 
revealed Christianity. But no man, while in 
this state of being, can know how God exists 
thus, because it is a mode of existence unlike 
any thing earthly. In this respect, as well as 
in respect to his ubiquity, the mode of his ex- 
istence is unlike ours ; and to deny that he 
exists thus, because we do not, and therefore 
cannot perceive how he does, were the same 
absurdity as to deny that he exists every where 
at the same moment, because we do not, and 
therefore cannot perceive how he does. The 



19 

cases are parallel. God may exist in this house, 
as really and as perfectly as though it were his 
only dwelling-place, although we are informed 
that the heaven of heavens cannot contain him. 
In another, and not more mysterious sense, he 
may exist in the person of the man Christ Jesus, 
in " all the fullness of the Godhead bodily," as 
really and as perfectly as though that were the 
only mode of his existence. 

By not thus discriminating between what we 
can know and what we cannot know, many 
are always learning, and never able to come to 
a knowledge of the truth. They undertake to 
be too wise. Instead of assuming the modest 
attitude of strictly inductive philosophers, in the 
sublime studies of natural and moral science, 
they launch away into an ocean of distempered 
dreams and fancies. Thus, while attempting to 
become wise, they become fools. ' For it is 
written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, 
and bring to nought the understanding of the 
prudent. ' 

Suppose, then, that a man, instead of calmly 
contemplating the evidence of the fact implied 
in the trinity of God, hold his mind in exclusive 
attention to the mode of the fact. ' How is 
this ? I do not exist in this mode ; how can 
God ? ' He hesitates — but ah ! here the truth 






20 

labors; its evidence wants its auxiliary. He 
does not, as before, wish the fact true ; his 
prejudice is against it. Perhaps he is unwilling 
to renounce his cast. He therefore still ponders 
the imagined difficulty, and begins to be sure it 
is valid. In the mean time, the proof of the 
fact is out of his sight, inclosed in the Bible, 
which he perhaps seldom carefully reads. He 
has also heard something about interpolations 
and ambiguous readings ; and although they all 
amount, in sober fact, to a mere trifle, yet every 
dust thrown into the scale where the prejudice 
lies, weighs a mountain. He soon becomes 
certain that the trinity of God is a doctrine 
fraught with insuperable objections. ' It is un- 
reasonable ! — a relic of dark ages ! — not a doc- 
trine for enlightened minds.' Such is his real 
opinion, 

Suppose now you could exhibit to him in- 
disputable testimony of the fact in question — 
such testimony as, to a mind evenly balanced in 
respect to the subject, would place the fact be- 
yond all doubt. Suppose you could open to 
him the testimony of God, and there read, that 
' Christ is the supreme God, the true God, the 
great God ; that he made all things, and without 
him nothing was made that was made ; that 
angels and archangels in the high heavens cast 



21 

their crowns at his feet and worship him.' — 
Suppose you could read to him all this, in lan- 
guage as plain as ever dropped from the pen of 
inspiration, and what have you accomplished 1 
' O, it cannot be true ! It were absurd to sup- 
pose it. That language must mean something 
else ; or it is an interpolation, and ought not to 
be there!' Convince that man by testimony 
from the Bible ? You cannot do it. His mind 
has come into such a position in relation to this 
subject, that he sees but just one thing, and that 
is his objection. An imagined difficulty he is 
holding, as an opaque body, directly before his 
eyes ; and he could not see the sun, though 
it were pouring its noonday beams upon him. 

Excepting, in this connection, those who seem 
not to think at all — who appear lit le else than 
niere masses of physical organization ; and ex- 
cepting those who, spending their whole lives in 
a restless fever of worldly cares and pleasures, 
never lift their souls calmly upward to God, or 
send a solicitous thought onward to the ages of 
their eternity ; and excepting also those whose 
minds seem only to respond, whose sentiments 
are the mere echo of the sentiments of others, — 
passing by all these, and contemplating indi- 
viduals of character, intelligence, sound judg- 
ment, in many other matters, and sober thinkers 
2* 



22 

upon the great truths of religion, we may per- 
ceive the action of two causes, even in the minds 
of such, conspiring to resist the fact under con- 
sideration, supposing the fact to be clearly re-* 
vealed — the first, a habit of continually rumi* 
nating upon the mode of it, to the neglect of the 
positive evidence of its existence ; the second, 
an undue, and perhaps unconscious ascendancy 
of will — antipathy of some sort— ^resisting the 
force of evidence. 

Remove these causes entirely, and it is be- 
lieved that every mind, which admits that the 
Bible teaches the immortality of the soul, would 
also admit that it teaches the deity of Christ. 
For, as we have seen, every difficulty in the way 
of the admission of the one fact, resulting from 
ignorance of its mode, lies equally in the way 
of the other fact. 13o far, then, their claims to 
our credence are equal. The truth is, to a 
thoroughly scientific mind the supposed diffi- 
culty in either case is really no objection at all. 
But we find, on examination, that the passages 
of Scripture of unquestionable genuineness and 
unambiguous import, which explicitly inculcate 
the deity of Christ, are even more numerous 
than those which thus inculcate the immortality 
of the soul. If any doubt it, let them dismiss 
from their minds all that is adventitious to the 



23 

fact in question, and give their candid attention 
as we proceed in our subsequent examination, 
and see for themselves if it be not so. 

We have only to become acquainted with 
church history, and the history of the progress 
of the natural sciences, to be convinced of the 
importance of pursuing the strictly inductive 
process in our search of truth, and of accurately 
discriminating between what is and what is not 
knowable, in the present stage of the human 
mind. Some have dove into speculations too 
deep, and because they could not know every 
thing, have come to the sage conclusion that 
they could not know any thing for certainty; 
and so have settled down into a kind of uni- 
versal, sluggish skepticism. Others have, on 
the other hand, affected an air of lofty arro- 
gance, and asserted that they know what it is 
certain they do not know. They have even 
pretended to grasp the infinite God in their 
minds, and maintain that he must exist in the 
same mode in which themselves exist ; when it 
is certain he does not, and when all the world 
might perceive that they attempt to dip up the 
ocean in a thimble. 

True science is modest. It knows and de- 
fines the present limit of human knowledge, and 
up to this limit it walks with firm but cautious 



24 

step, and heavenward eye, but never attempts a 
step beyond. This modest course is the only 
one to real knowledge in matters of religion, as 
well as of general science. It gives to the mind 
a firm hold on the truth. It enables it to take 
in what it pretends to know, with an entire and 
perfect grasp. Thus it is not forever moving 
upon the w r ave of conjecture. It is not subject 
to being tossed to and fro, and carried about 
by every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men 
and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait 
to deceive, but is rooted and grounded in the 
faith. 

The doctrine of the trinity has been some- 
times so stated by schoolmen and divines, as in- 
cautiously to involve the doctrine itself with some 
absurd theory, explanatory of the mode of it ; so 
that a rejection of the theory would virtually 
amount to a rejection of the doctrine it at- 
tempted to explain. Nor would it satisfy a 
shrewd mind, disposed to evade the doctrine, to 
call that perceived absurdity a mystery, and 
attempt to cover the difficulty over in that way. 
A mystery is one thing ; a perceived absurdity 
is quite another; — the former, something not yet 
revealed ; the latter, something the mind already 
knows. There are mysteries in the trinity of 



25 

God, and so there are mysteries in his unity, his 
ubiquity, his eternity, and all his other trans- 
cendant perfections ; but no absurdities. It is 
then highly important to keep the distinction 
clear between fact and theory, and to exhibit 
the fact in its most naked, intelligible form, 
in our 

STATEMENT OF THE DOCTRINE. 

Sermons and books designed to subvert the 
doctrine of the trinity, abound with assertions 
and proofs that God is One. All this is entirely 
irrelevant to the question at issue. We fully 
believe that God is one being. We believe the 
sentiment contained in the inspired declaration 
against the polytheism of the Gentile nations, 
* Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord.' 
We have implicit confidence in the word of 
God, and a single declaration from that source 
is sufficient to settle in our minds the question, 
which the mere light of nature had never settled, 
whether there be ' gods many and lords many/ 
or whether there be but one almighty Being on 
the throne of the universe. While, however, 
we believe that there is but one God, we are 
aware that he does not exist in the same mode 
in which man exists. The modes of existence 



26 

may be many ; we know not how many. I wilj 
illustrate my meaning. The mode of man's 
existence is such, that he can occupy only one 
place in the universe at the same moment. 
The mode of God's existence is such, that he 
can occupy every place at the same moment. 
An angel may be one being, existing only in 
spirit ; a man may be one being, existing in 
soul and body ; God may be one being, existing 
in Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. An angel 
may have one mode of existence ; man may 
have another ; God may have still another. 
The above is not intended for a definition of the 
mode of God's existence, but simply an illus- 
tration of the fact that there are different modes 
of being, and that the mode of the divine being 
is extremely different, in many respects, from 
ours. 

It was the great and final commission to the 
apostles of Christianity, ' Go ye, disciple all 
nations, baptizing them into the name of the 
Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.' 
Jehovah is thus proclaimed to the world as the 
object of our religious homage, existing in some 
sense as Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. But 
God is not three in the same sense in which he 
is one. A triangle, for instance, is one, in re- 
spect to its being one triangle — and three, in 



27 

respect to its sides. The object of this explana- 
tion is simply the illustration of one point ; to 
wit, that there is a certain sense in which God 
is one, and a certain other sense in which he is 
three. The sense in which he is one, is ex- 
pressed by the term being. He is one being. 
The sense in which he is three, is usually ex- 
pressed by the term, person. He exists in three 
persons. The term person is used by way of 
accommodation, as we apply various other hu- 
man expressions to God. Some trinitarians 
have objected to the use of this term, because' 
objectors to the trinity of God pervert its in-* 
tended meaning. But what term, taken from 
human vocabularies and applied to God, is not 
liable to this abuse ? Not one. The mind that 
is disposed to take advantage, can do it, not 
only of this, but of every anthropopathic expres- 
sion in the Bible employed to represent God. 

We must either say nothing about God, or we 
must apply to him human language ; and he 
who takes advantage of this, is unkind to his 
species, because he takes advantage of a cir- 
cumstance in our present mode of being beyond 
our control. We have a distinct idea of the ex- 
istence of the fact which this term represents, but 
the exact image of the fact, in our present mode 
of existence, we are incompetent to perceive, 



28 

So of all the other natural attributes and perfec- 
tions of God. The reason is, our apprehensions- 
of God are obtained by contemplating our own 
attributes infinitely extended. But so different 
is the mode of God's existence from ours, that 
no human quality, by being extended and ex~ 
alted indefinitely in our imagination, can paint 
to our apprehension an exact image of the divine 
quality which it would represent. And even 
could we thus perceive it in the mind, we could 
not thus express it in language ; for all the per- 
ceptions of one mind must be transmitted to 
other minds through the media of resemblances. 
Consequently, that which has no exact resem- 
blance, cannot be exactly represented by lan- 
guage, even if conceived in thought. We use 
the term person, to designate the distinction in 
the Godhead, with as much definiteness of mean- 
ing as many other terms applied to God, which 
all do and must adopt who speak of that Being. 
But if any cannot contemplate God in the person 
of the Father, and in the person of the Son, and 
in the person of the Holy Ghost, without asso- 
ciating with the term person the whole idea of a 
human being, and thus making, ipso facto, three 
Gods, or rather three infinite men ! of Jehovah, 
they will probably do well to keep clear of this, 
and as far as possible of all other anthropopathic 



29 

expressions, applied to God. Let them beware 
how they say God sees, lest they must suppose 
that he has human eyes ; let them not say God 
hears, lest they must suppose he has human 
ears. Let them also beware how they call God 
a rock, lest they suppose him a solid mass of 
matter ; let them not venture on the language of 
inspiration, and say that God repented, lest they 
should impiously presume that he has sinned ! 
Let them enter into a more abstracted and sub- 
limely rational contemplation of Jehovah, in all 
his revealed endearing relations, as him ' whom 
no mortal eye hath seen or can see.' 

The word, person, is used only to represent 
the distinction in the Godhead necessarily im- 
plied in the revealed fact of the deity of the 
Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. 
If no word can be employed to represent that 
distinction which does not trouble them, let the 
distinction remain unrepresented ; only let them 
receive the ultimate revealed fact. 

By discriminating, in regard to the divine 
trinity, between the fact itself and the mode of 
the fact, it will be perceived that we are not 
chargeable with believing what we do not com- 
prehend. In strict language, no mind can 
believe what it does not comprehend. It may 
and does believe in the existence of multitudes 
3 



30 

of facts, which involve incomprehensibles; but 
the facts themselves, the precise things which 
the mind believes, it must clearly perceive. 

What then are the facts which we believe re- 
specting the trinity? They are these — That 
Jehovah exists in Father, Son, and Holy Ghost 
— that the Father is divine, that the Son is 
divine, that the Holy Ghost is divine — that these 
three are so far distinct (a distinction not ex- 
actly Kke any thing human, yet in some respects 
so much resembling the distinction of human 
persons) as to render pertinent and to authorize 
the scriptural application of the personal pro^ 
nouns to each, I, the Father; Thou, the Son; 
He, the Holy Ghost — that Jehovah, in each of 
these persons, sustains important relations to his 
creatures, and the great system of moral govern^ 
ment, just so far peculiar to each as is repre- 
sented in the Bible — and finally, that these 
three, existing in perfect eternal union, con- 
stitute the one glorious Being, who is the only 
living and true God. The revealed fact that God 
exists thus, is what we profess to believe ; how 
he exists thus, we do not understand. So also 
we believe the fact that God exists every where 
at the same moment ; but how he exists thus, 
we do not know. We clearly apprehend the 
fact, that the soul and body of man coexist r but 



31 

how they coexist, we 'do not pretend to have 
learned. We believe the fact, that man con- 
tinues to exist as a conscious being beyond 
the grave ; but with the mode of that existence, 
we are at present unacquainted. A candid and 
enlightened mind will not hesitate to acknowl- 
edge, that every supposed difficulty lying against 
the fact of the divine trinity, as involving mys- 
tery, lies equally against the fact of the divine 
ubiquity, the coexistence of soul and body, the 
existence of disembodied souls, and thousands 
of other facts in the moral and physical sci- 
ences ; the existence of which facts is unques- 
tionable, the modes of which as yet unexplained. 

But we are told that men have attempted 
to explain the mode of the trinity, and that 
they have explained it in different ways. And 
what if they have I So of other facts. Men 
have attempted to explain the mode of the co- 
existence of mind and matter ; and they have 
explained it in different ways. What then? It 
is still a fact that mind and matter do coexist, 
just as they did before a theory was ever framed 
upon the subject. 

In the beginning of the eighteenth century, 
Sir Isaac Newton discovered the fact, that the 
planets move round the sun in elliptical orbits. 
Soon after appeared a host of theorizers upon the 



32 

mode of the fact. One conjectured that the 
planets were sustained in their orbits by some 
gaseous fluid ; another, that they were impelled 
and guided by certain mysterious laws of at- 
traction and repulsion ; another, that the fact 
was produced by the immediate efficiency of 
God — and so on. What then ? Why, we find 
that the fact announced by Sir Isa c is still as 
good as ever. The planets do still move round 
in their orbits, just as they did in the beginning 
of the eighteenth century. The different theo- 
ries of men have not disturbed them at all. 

At a much earlier period, Jehovah announced 
to mankind some important facts respecting 
himself. Soon after, men began to theorize 
upon the mode of these facts ; and different 
men have sometimes framed diffjrent theories. 
What then ? All the developed facts still exist, 
as in the begin ing; the different human theo- 
ries explanatory of their mode notwithstanding. 
Facts in the divine trinity, the modes of which 
are as yet unknown, are thus practically ad- 
mitted to exist. Mankind have not been labor- 
ing for ages to explain what has no existence. 
But because they have not succeeded to explain 
the modes of these facts, some have concluded 
to disclaim the very existence of the facts them- 
selves ! An easy expedient, to be sure ; but is 



33 

it worthy of an intelligent, judicious mind, pro- 
fessing to appreciate evidence ? What 1 practi- 
cally adopt a principle, by virtue of which you 
may disclaim the very existence of Jehovah, and 
of all that your eyes behold, and of even your 
own existence too ! Go, child of yesterday ! 
immerse thyself in thy wisdom — live and die 
in it ! But God shall at last demonstrate thy 
wisdom to be folly. 

On this same principle by which you would 
thus reject the trinity of God, you may also 
reject his unity. Are we not as profoundly 
ignorant of the mode of his existing in unity, as 
we are of the mode of his existing in trinity ? 
Most certainly we are. It is not easy to impress 
this sentiment on minds unaccustomed to con- 
sider the amazing difference between the mode 
of God's existence and our own. Nevertheless, 
it is strictly true ; nor can it be doubted that 
every thorough and candid mind will perceive 
and admit it. The man who has not learned 
that the mode of the divine existence lies en- 
tirely without the present boundaries of human 
knowledge, has his first lesson on this subject 
yet to learn ; and it should be here remarked, 
to the credit of some of the most intelligent and 
candid of those who oppose the doctrine of the 
jtrinity, that they have recently relinquished the 
3* 



34 

ground of objection to the doctrine that it in- 
volves a mystery, and profess themselves ready 
to refer the question entirely to the decision of 
the Bible.* In this position, the question cannot 
long remain unsettled. 

Respecting theories explanatory of the mode 
of the trinity, we do not object to them, provided 
they be understood simply as theories. To show 
that the doctrine involves no absurdity, we ex- 
hibit a theory respecting the mode, or in other 
words, a way in which it may be ; and until it 
is demonstrated that it cannot be in the supposed 
way, we have legitimate title to both the theory 
and the fact. This is the precise place and 
value of a theory, in a sound logical argument. 
Let me illustrate my meaning by reference to a 
fact already adduced. It is a known fact, that 
the soul and body of man coexist. Now for a 
theory respecting the mode of the fact. We 
give the following. They may be connected 
through the media of membrane, brain, and the 
nervous system. It has never been proved that 
they are not. We have then as yet a logical 
claim to both the theory and the fact ; for a 
theory is something that may be, and a fact is 
something that is. Should it ever be proved 

* Note B. 



35 

that they are not connected in this way, we still 
do not renounce the fact of their coexistence, but 
conclude that they are connected in some other 
way. We renounce the old theory for a new 
one, the fact itself continuing the same. 

Suppose it to be a revealed fact, and whether 
it is we are to inquire in our next discourse, that 
the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, are each di- 
vine, and coexisting in the one Being, Jehovah. 
Now for a theory respecting the mode of this 
fact. We give the following. Their unity may 
consist in oneness of essence. We are not 
sufficiently acquainted with the elements of 
being, to know that oneness of essence cannot 
constitute that plurality of persons, which the 
trinity predicates of Jehovah. Our theory, then, 
is good, and the fact it respects is entitled to ra- 
tional belief, if attested by good evidence ; for 
it is entirely above the reach of all objection. 
But let not the fact and the theory be confound- 
ed ; the theory is human, the fact divine. 

I A certain writer labored his way through a 
whole pamphlet,* to show the amount of evidence 
requisite to sustain the doctrine in question. 
His object was, to push it with imaginary diffi- 
culties as far as possible from the reach of 
■ Note C. 






36 

evidence, and send the mind of the inquirer to 
the Bible with a previous determination not to 
believe it. Of what use is the Bible to one 
whose mind has assumed this posture ? His 
opinion is formed before he goes to the Bible. 
He is prepared not to believe, though the Bible 
assert ; or to wrest its assertions from their 
natural import. He has virtually anticipated a 
revelation from God, and is already too wise to 
be taught by him. This is an extremely loose 
and illogical method of treating any subject. 
The correct method of investigating a compli- 
cated subject is, first to analyze it into its ele- 
mentary parts ; then to examine each part care- 
fully by itself. 

The present subject divides itself into three 
distinct inquiries. The first is, Does the doc- 
trine involve any absurdity ? We demonstrate 
that it does not. Then that point is settled. 
The doctrine is admissible to the common privi- 
lege of proof; and is to be believed on the au- 
thority of evidence, just like any other fact in 
divine or human science. The second inquiry 
is, Is the Bible divine truth ? We all acknowl- 
edge that it is. This is common ground ; for 
we are not now arguing with deists and atheists, 
but with those who believe that God has caused 
the Bible to be written so much under the 



37 



special supervision of his own eye, that we are 
authorized to rely upon its decisions. The 
third and only remaining inquiry is, What does 
the Bible teach, in regard to this subject ? We 
then approach the Bible, without any a priori 
bias for or against the doctrine in question. If 
the Bible teaches it, we are prepared to believe 
it ; if the Bible does not teach it, we are pre- 
pared to reject it. This is the inquiry which 
we intend to prosecute in the next discourse. 



DISCOURSE II, 



DEITY AND PERSONALITY OF CHRIST. 



John i. 1. 

AND THE WORD WAS GOD. 

We are all agreed that Jesus Christ possessed 
humanity, in respect to which he was not simply 
inferior to the infinite God, but was like us, a 
created and dependent being. He was a man. 
It were needless to occupy time in citing scrip- 
tures in testimony of this conceded fact. The 
question at issue is, whether, in addition to his 
humanity, he also possessed deity. Trinitarians 
claim that he did ; and the deity of Christ is 
what they term the second person in the divine 
trinity. Having seen that a trinity in the being 
of God involves nothing absurd, and admitting 



39 

the Bible to be of divine authority, nothing re- 
mains in settling the question but to ascertain 
what the Bible teaches. 

Logicians make two kinds of definition, nomi- 
nal and real. Ah object is nominally defined, 
by simply mentioning its name. When the ob- 
ject itself is known, and familiarly associated 
with its name, you have only to mention its 
name to another, and the object is immediately 
presented to his mind. When a term is thus 
evidently used in its plain, unqualified sense, we 
cannot fail to apprehend the object which it rep- 
resents, without violating the law of language. 

The name by which the sacred Scriptures 
designate the Supreme Being, is thus applied to 
Jesus Christ. Take the following instances. 
Rom. ix. 5. " Whose are the fathers, and of 
whom, as concerning the flesh, Christ came, 
who is over all, God blessed forever." The 
Greek scholar will perceive that the phrase, 
" over-all-God," is exactly equivalent to the 
phrase in English idiom, Supreme God. 

John i.l. " In the beginning was the Word, 
and the Word was with God, and the Word was 
God." Verse 14. " And the Word was made 
flesh, and dwelt among us." 

1 John v. 20. " And we know that the Son 
of God is come, and hath given us an under- 



40 

standing, that we may know him that is true, 
and we are in him that is true, even in his Son 
Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and eternal 
life." 

1 Tim. iii. 16. " And without controversy, 
great is the mystery of godliness ; God was 
manifest in the flesh." 

John xx. 28, 29. " And Thomas answered 
and said unto him, My Lord and my God. 
Jesus saith unto him, Thomas, because thou 
hast seen me, thou hast believed : blessed are 
they that have not seen, and yet have believed." 
Here Christ, instead of reproving Thomas for 
calling him God, or correcting his mistake, as 
honesty would seem to dictate, if he were not 
God, commends his belief. He even goes far- 
ther, and commends others for believing as 
Thomas did, although they had not seen him. 

Heb. i. 8. " Unto the Son, he saith, Thy 
throne, O God, is forever and ever : a sceptre 
of righteousness is the sceptre of thy kingdom," 

In the following passages, the Greek particle 
translated and, is equivalent to the English word 
even* As in Eph. v. 20. " Giving thanks al- 
ways for all things unto God and the Father" — 
" unto God even the Father," &c. Familiarity 

* l Exponendi vim habet.' — Schrevelius. So used both 
in Hellenistick and classical Greek. 



41 

with the Greek idiom will render this perfectly 
plain. 

Titus ii. 13. " Looking for that blessed hope, 
and the glorious appearance of the great God, 
even our Saviour Jesus Christ. " The great 
God, whose glorious appearance we are looking 
for, who is coming to judge the world, is then 
none other than Jesus Christ. 

2 Tim. iv. 1. "I charge thee before God, 
even the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the 
quick and the dead at his appearing. " 

2 Pet. i. 1. " To them that have obtained 
like precious faith with us, through the right- 
eousness of God, even our Saviour Jesus Christ." 
There are other passages of similar import. 

So far, then, as a nominal definition can 
represent an object, the sacred Scriptures repre- 
sent Christ as God. You perceive, also, that 
not only the name of the Supreme Being is ap- 
plied to him, but that it is also accompanied 
with the strongest epithets. He is declared in 
the above scriptures to be the ' great God,' 
the ' true God/ the ■ supreme God.' 

There remains only one other form of defi- 
nition, by which an object can be presented 
through the medium of language by one mind 
to another mind, and that is what is styled a 
real definition. It consists in a specification of 
4 



42 

the known qualities of the object defined. Thus 
we define matter, for example, by saying it is that 
which has solidity, extension, divisibility, mova- 
bility, and passivity. This kind of definition is 
entirely unambiguous, when qualities are speci- 
fied in an object, which belong to that object, 
and to no other. Hence we define God, the 
Supreme Being, in the most unambiguous man- 
ner possible, by saying that he is the Being who 
created all things, and is possessed of omnipo- 
tent power ; has eternal existence ; is omni- 
present and omniscient ; and is entitled to the 
religious homage of all accountable creatures. 
The Being who possesses these qualities and 
claims is God ; for no other being in the uni- 
verse does possess them. If, therefore, the 
Scriptures reveal the fact that Jesus Christ 
possesses them, they reveal the fact that Jesus 
Christ is God. Let us then proceed to each of 
these inquiries. 

1. Do the Scriptures teach us that Jesus 
Christ created all things, and that he is pos- 
sessed of omnipotent power ? 

John i. 1 — 3. " In the beginning was the 
Word, and the Word was with God, and the 
Word was God ; the same was in the beginning 
with God ; all things were made by him, and with- 
out him was not any thing made that was made.'' 



43 

Compare this with Genesis i. 1. " In the begin- 
ning God created the heaven, and the earth." 

Heb. i. 10. " Thou Lord [Christ— see con- 
text] in the beginning hast laid the foundation 
of the earth, and the heavens are the work of 
thine hands." 

Col. i. 16, 17. " By him [Christ — see con- 
text] were all things created, that are in heaven 
and that are in earth, visible and invisible, 
whether they be thrones, or dominions, or prin- 
cipalities, or powers; all things were created by 
him, and for him ; and he is before all things, 
and by him all things consist." Language can- 
not probably be framed, more strongly declara- 
tive that Jesus Christ created the universe. 

This were sufficient attestation also of his 
omnipotence ; but that attribute is moreover ex- 
pressly assigned him. In Phil. iii. 21, that power 
is ascribed to Christ, by which he is " able to 
subdue all things unto himself" — unlimited do- 
minion over all things. 

Rev. i. 8. " I am Alpha and Omega, the 
beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, 
[Christ — see context] which is, and which was, 
and which is to come, the Almighty." Com- 
pare this with Genesis xvii. 1. "I am the Al- 
mighty God." 

John v. 21. " For as the Father raiseth up 



44 



the dead, and quickeneth them, even so the Son 
quickeneth whom he will. 7 ' Here precisely 
the same power is ascribed to the Son, as to the 
Father. 

2. Do the Scriptures ascribe eternal existence 
to Christ ? 

1 John i. 2. " We bear witness and show 
unto you that Eternal Life, which was with 
the Father, and was manifested unto us." The 
context shows that by " Eternal Life," is meant 
Jesus Christ. 

In the apocalypse, Christ styles himself " the 
Alpha and the Omega — the first and the last." 
That is, his existence is antecedent to all other, 
and will endure forever. He also speaks by the 
same writer, in his gospel, of the glory which he 
had with the Father before the world was, in 
such manner and connection, as render the sup- 
position that it was a glory only in anticipation, 
exceedingly forced and unnatural. 

To the caviling Jews, who said that he' was 
not yet fifty years old,, and could not have seen 
Abraham, he replied, " Verily I say unto you, 
before Abraham was, I am." That he possessed 
real, and not merely an anticipated existence, 
before Abraham, he here plainly asserts ; for the 
very object of his declaration was, to reply to 
their cavil, that he had seen Abraham. He also 



45 

styled himself "the root and the offspring of 
David." How could he be both ? By being in 
respect to his deity antecedent to David, and 
giving birth to his existence ; and in respect to 
his humanity, subsequent to David, and de- 
scended from his loins. 

Heb. i. 10—12. " Thou, Lord, [Christ,] in 
the beginning, hast laid the foundation of the 
earth," &c. In this passage, the antemundane 
existence of Christ is evidently assumed. 

Heb. L 8. "Unto the Son, he saith, Thy 
throne, O God ! is forever and ever." That is, 
without beginning and without end. 

3. Do the Scriptures teach that Jesus Christ 
is omnipresent and omniscient ? 

Matt, xviii. 20. " Where two or three are 
gathered together in my name, there am I in the 
midst of them J' 

Matt, xxviii. 19, 20. "Co ye therefore and 
teach all nations," &,c— " and lo, I am with you 
alway, even unto the end of the world." It has 
been said, that Christ meant by this only what 
we mean, when we assure our parting friends 
that we shall still be with them in spirit, though 
absent in body. This is an extremely superficial 
exposition ; for the very point of consideration 
was, that Christ was to be present with his dis- 
ciples in such a manner as to sustain them in 
4* 



46 

their labors, and take cognizance of all their 
doings, so as to judge them at last according to 
their works. Are we present with our absent 
friends in such a sense as this 1 Rev. ii. 23. 
" All the churches shall know that I am he 
which searcheth the hearts, and I will give unto 
every one of you according to his work." Jesus 
Christ is then present with his disciples in such 
a manner as to search their hearts, and take exact 
cognizance of all their conduct, and thus be 
enabled, as their final Judge, to give unto every 
one according to his work. He has thus given 
his own definition of what he means by being 
present with his disciples, and it is too late for us 
to make another. Now compare this with Jere- 
miah xvii. 10, &c. — where Jehovah claims it as 
his peculiar prerogative, to know the secrets of 
the human heart. " I, Jehovah, search the 
heart, I try the reins, even to give every man 
according to his ways." 

Matt. xi. 27. " No man knoweth the Son, but 
the Father; neither knoweth any man the Father, 
save the Son, und he to whomsoever the Son 
will reveal him." Here precisely the same 
omniscience is ascribed to the Son, as to the 
Father. 

Acts i. 24. " They prayed and said, Thou 
Lord, [Christ,] who hnowest the hearts of all 



47 

men, shew whether of these two thou hast cho- 
sen." 

John xxi. 17. " And he said unto him, Lord, 
thou knoiccst all things, thou knowest that I love 
thee." 

John ii. 24, 25. " But Jesus did not commit 
himself unto them, because he knew all men; 
and needed not that any should testify of man, 
for he knew ivhat was in man" 

John vi. 64. " For Jesus knew from, the be- 
ginning who they were that believed not, and 
who should betray him." 

4. Do the Scriptures exhibit Jesus Christ 
as an object of religious worship and homage 1 

Jehovah is expressly declared to be the only 
proper object of all religious worship. The first 
commandment in the decalogue is, " Thou shalt 
have no other gods before me." That is, ' Thou 
shalt worship no other being in the universe but 
God. 5 If, then, we find in the Bible authority 
for worshipping Christ, we must infer that he is 
God. 

Phil. ii. 10, 11. "That at the name of Jesus 
every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and 
things in earth, and things under the earth ; 
and that every tongue should confess that Jesus 
Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father." 



48 

Thus it is declared that we glorify the Father 
by worshipping Christ. 

Heb. i. 6. " When he- bringeth in the first 
begotten into the world, he saith, And let all 
the angels of God worship him." 

Gal. i. 5. "To whom [Christ] be glory for- 
ever." 

John v. 23. "That all men should honor the 
Son, even as they honor the Father. He that 
honoreth not the Son, honoreth not the Father 
who hath sent him." 

Rev. i. 5, 6. " Unto him that loved us, and 
washed us from our sins in his own blood, and 
hath made us kings and priests unto God and 
his Father, to him be glory and dominion for- 
ever and ever." 

Rev. v. 9 — 14. "And they sung a new 
song, saying, Thou art worthy to take the 
book, and to open the seals thereof; for thou 
wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by 
thy blood out of every kindred, and tongue, 
and people, and nation ; and hast made us unto 
our God kings and priests; and we shall reign 
on the earth. And I beheld, and I heard the 
voice of many angels round about the throne, 
and the beasts and the elders ; and the number 
of them was ten thousand times ten thousand, 
and thousands of thousands ; saying with a loud 



49 

voice, Worthy is the Lamb that was slain, to 
receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and 
strength, and honor, and glory, and blessing. 
And every creature which is in heaven, and on 
the earth, and under the earth, and such as are 
in the sea, and all that are in them, heard I 
saying, Blessing, and honor, and glory, and 
power, be unto him that sitteth upon the throne, 
and unto the Lamb forever and ever." 

Is it possible for language to ascribe divine 
honor to any being, if this does not ascribe it to 
Christ ? 

We have also unquestionable authority, both 
from the Scriptures and from ecclesiastical 
history, that the apostles and other primitive 
Christians worshipped Christ. Acts i. 24. "And 
they prayed and said, Thou Lord, who knowest 
the hearts of all men, shew whether of these 
two thou hast chosen." By Lord, is meant the 
Lord Jesus Christ, [see verse 21, &c] the usual 
appellation given to Christ in the book of the 
Acts. Here, then, is a prayer, offered by the 
inspired apostles in reference to a highly im- 
portant event, addressed directly to Christ, in 
which he is acknowledged to know the hearts of 
all men, and in which his pleasure is consulted 
and his direction invoked. 

Acts vii. 59, 60. " And they stoned Stephen, 



50 

calling upon God, and saying, Lord Jesus, re- 
ceive my spirit. And he kneeled down and 
cried with a loud voice, Lord, lay not this sin to 
their charge. And when he had said this, he 
fell asleep." A dying martyr, " filled with the 
Holy Ghost," with a clear vision of eternity 
opening on his soul, thus addresses his last 
prayer to the Lord Jesus, and requests him to 
receive his departing spirit. Let us ponder this 
well, and consider whether we too, when stand- 
ing on the borders of eternity, may not need to 
pray as Stephen did. 

2 Cor. xii. 8, 9. " For this thing I besought 
the Lord thrice, that it might depart from me. 
And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for 
thee ; for my strength is made perfect in weak- 
ness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in 
mine infirmities, that the power of Christ may 
rest upon me." Here the apostle asserts that he 
repeatedly prayed to Christ to be relieved of his 
infirmities, and received an answer from him, that 
his grace should be sufficient for him. He 
therefore says that he will glory in his infirmities, 
that the power of Christ may rest upon him. 

Christians are designated in the sacred Scrip- 
tures, as those who invoke or worship Christ. 
See, for example, 1 Cor. i. 2. The passages 
in which the apostles ascribe divine honors to 



51 

Christ, are numerous. See the following. Rom, 
i. 7 : 1 Cor. i. 3 ; 2 Cor. i. 2 ; 1 Thess. iii. 11, 
12 ; 2 Thess. ii. 16, 17 ; Acts i. 24 ; 2 Tim. 
iv. 14, 17, 18; Acts ix. 14. 

Even the heathen observed the fact, that the 
primitive Christians were in the habit of wor- 
shipping Christ. Says Eusebius, in speaking of 
Christians, " Whatever psalms and hymns were 
composed by faithful brethren, from the begin- 
ning, praise Christ, the Word of God." 

The apostolic benedictions, as in 2 Cor. xiii. 
14, and the doxologies of the Christian church 
in all ages, ascribe equal divine honor to Father, 
Son, and Holy Ghost, as the eternal Jehovah. 

Thus it appears that the deity of Christ is 
taught in the Bible, in all the possible ways in 
which language can be made a vehicle of in- 
struction* Suppose the deity of Christ to be a 
fact, and that God were desirous of communi- 
cating the fact to us by language, how were it 
possible for him to do so, if he has not done it? 
For, what language could he possibly employ to 
express it, which he has not employed in the 
Bible? Plainly none. All the power of lan- 
guage is there exhausted upon the subject. 

How then can you consistently deny the fact r 

* Note D. 



52 

and still maintain that you believe the Bible to 
be a revelation from God? Do you say that 
there are other passages which appear to mili- 
tate against the deity of Christ ; and that your 
faith rests on them? But this will not do. 
There can be no contradiction in the Bible, if 
it be what it professes ; we are not left to choose 
between really conflicting passages. How can 
you avoid seeing that your only alternative is, 
either to give up the Bible entirely, or to admit 
all the facts which it teaches, and reconcile these 
facts with each other? The truth is, these facts 
are not only reconcilable with each other, when 
we bring the sound maxims of science to bear 
upon them, but they confirm each other. All 
the facts which the sacred Scriptures predicate 
of that glorious personage, Jesus Christ, not only 
do not oppose each other, but are essential, con- 
stituent, harmonious parts of the same wonderful 
whole. 

Let us look at this point. There are three 
classes of scriptures which designate Christ. 
First, those passages which represent him as a 
sinless human being, subject to the various wants 
and obedient to the duties of a man. Respect- 
ing this, there is no controversy. The perfect 
humanity of Christ is essential to the trinitarian 
doctrine, that the ( Word became flesh.' 



53 

Secondly, there is a class of scriptures which 
speak of Christ in the humbled condition of his 
deity as veiled in humanity, and of his official 
inferiority to the Father as Mediator. In this 
view, those passages which speak of Christ's 
assumed mediatorial character, which have been 
urged against his deity, most plainly and strongly 
imply the very fact which they have been sup- 
posed to disprove. 2 Cor. viii. 9. " Though 
rich, for your sakes he became poor, that ye 
through his poverty might be rich.'' Phil. ii. 6 — 
8. " Who, being in the form of God, thought it 
not robbery to be equal with God ; but made him- 
self of no reputation, and took upon him the form 
of a servant, and was made in the likeness of 
men. And being found in fashion as a man, 
he humbled himself, and became obedient unto 
death, even the death of the cross." Now what 
are we to infer from these scriptural representa- 
tions that the Son humbled himself, and entered 
into a condition, in respect to which he was 
inferior to the Father, if he was merely a cre- 
ated being ? A creature humbling himself, till 
he became, in his humbled condition, inferior to 
God ! You might as well say, that a drop of 
water has been diminished, till it is not so large 
as the ocean ! 

It were more than astonishing, that the in- 
5 



54 

spired writers should have ever informed us that 
the Son, in his state of humiliation, was inferiof 
to the Father, were it not a fact, that in his 
state of primeval glory, he was equal to him. 
It were mockery, to say that the Son humbled 
himself, by assuming humanity, so that he be- 
became in that condition inferior to God the 
Father, if he is merely a created being. For, 
every created being, without taking a single 
step downward in humiliation, is as diminutive 
in comparison of God, as a particle of dust, in 
comparison of the whole material universe ! 

Of similar import, manifestly, is the passage 
in John xiv. 28. " If ye loved me," said Christ, 
" ye would rejoice, because I said, I go to the 
Father ; for my Father is greater than I." 
Christ most evidently speaks here of his official 
inferiority, as mediator between God and man, 
and reminds his disciples, that if they exercised 
a truly enlightened benevolence in respect to 
him, they would rejoice that he was about to 
terminate his state of humiliation, and ascend to 
the higher glory of the Father. 

The third class of scriptures include all the 
passages which inculcate the deity of Christ. 
There is no passage in the Bible, treating of 
Christ, which does not arrange itself in one of 
these three classes. Passages of the first class, 



55 

prove simply that Christ on earth possessed real 
humanity. Passages of the second class, imply 
a previous glory from which he was humbled. 
Passages of the third class, directly prove his 
deity. The first neither prove or disprove the 
deity of Christ ; the second imply it : the third 
prove it. There is then no repugnancy, no 
conflict, between these passages. A sound 
Trinitarian believes them all to be equally true, 
and perfectly consistent with each other. . 

There is a passage in Mark xiii. 32, which 
has been so often adduced and confidently re- 
lied upon, to prove that Christ had only limited 
knowledge, that it is worthy of a special notice. 
" But of that day and that hour knoweth no 
man ; no, not the angels which are in heaven, 
neither the Son, but the Father/' The Hebrew 
scholar is familiar with the force of the hiphil 
conjugation in Hebrew, in which words are 
taken in a causative and permissive sense. He 
is also aware that the Hebraistic idiom is car- 
ried from the Old into the New Testament. 
Thus, when Paul says, " I am determined to 
know nothing among you, save Jesus Christ, 
and him crucified,"' he means, " I am deter- 
mined to cause to be known — to proclaim — to 
preach — nothing but Christ," &c. So when 
Christ says, " If thy right hand offend thee," 



56 

foe, the meaning is, " If thy right hand cause 
thee to offend/' &c. This conjugation has both 
an active and a passive signification — active, 
when applied to the actor ; and passive, when 
applied to the receiver. I will not know a given 
thing or event among you, and you shall not 
Jcnoio it, is equivalent to saying in English idiom, 
I will not make Jcnoivn the event among you, 
and you shall not he made to know — or be in- 
formed. 

The event spoken of, in the contemplated 
passage, is the destruction of Jerusalem. Men 
and angels, under the ancient dispensation, had 
been commissioned to announce many future 
events ; Christ, under the new, announced many 
more. By examining the whole chapter, it ap- 
pears that Christ gave a very full and circum- 
stantial account of the event itself, and the facts 
attending and following it ; which of course de- 
manded an immeasurably greater amount of pre- 
science, than simply to know the time of it ; but, 
for important reasons, the time of it was not to 
be announced. ' Of that day, and of that hour, 
no man should make known ; no, not the angels 
which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the 
Father.' The time of the event was to remain 
a profound secret, until it should arrive, when 
the Father, whose more peculiar office it is to 



57 

send forth — to commission — should commission 
the destroyers to bring " sudden destruction" 
upon the devoted city. Christ then proceeds to 
make use of the fact, that they were not per- 
mitted to know the time of this event, as a 
reason why they should watch, and be always 
ready for it. 

To convey the meaning of this passage in a 
less scholastic and more popular manner, — 
When Paul said, " I am determined not to know 
any thing among you, save Jesus Christ and 
him crucified," his meaning was, that, he was de- 
termined not to busy himself in other matters — 
not to preach the wisdom and philosophy of the 
schools, &,c. This was foreign from his com- 
mission, which was to preach the pure gospel. 
In the English sense of the term, Paul did him- 
self know the wisdom and philosophy of the 
schools : his knowledge was great in respect to 
these, and many other subjects ; but it was not 
his business to cause others to know — -to pro- 
claim — any thing but the gospel. So Christ 
did himself know the time of the destruction of 
Jerusalem, but for important reasons, he was 
not to cause others to know — to proclaim — the 
time of the event, but only the event itself, and 
the circumstances attending it. All the prophe- 
cies in the Bible are on the same principle. It 
5* 



58 

is the spirit of prophecy to unfold future events ; 
while, for important reasons, neither men, or 
angels, or Christ himself, are to announce ' the 
day and the hour' of them. 

Some have undertaken to say, that there was 
a portion of deity in Christ. But what kind of 
sense is that ? We might with as much pro- 
priety say, that there is a portion of God in this 
house ! God is as truly present in this house, 
as though it were his only dwelling place ; al- 
though we are assured that the heaven and the 
heaven of heavens cannot contain him. Why 
be so slow to learn ? Why not admit the whole 
obvious truth, at once, that God exists in a dif- 
ferent mode from us ? and then we have no 
difficulty in admitting the revealed fact, that in 
the man Christ Jesus, God exists, in " all the 
fullness of the Godhead bodily ; >J * while, as the 
lofty and eternal One, he fills the high heavens 
with his presence and glory. 

For aught that we know, Jehovah could ex- 
hibit himself in the second person of his trinity 
incarnate, in all the worlds that he has ever 
created, at the same time. It might comport 
both with his own blessedness, and that of his 
creatures, thus to radiate his glory through the 

* Col. ii. 9. 



59 

universe, and bring himself down to the appre- 
hensions and the sympathies of all his creatures. 
Were such at last to appear to have been the 
fact, what an awful chasm is made in the per- 
fections of Jehovah, by denying his trinity — 
denying him that mode of existence, by which 
he can thus display his personal glory through 
his empire of intelligent beings ! 

There are three or four passages of Scripture, 
(1 John v. 7 ; Acts xx. 28 ; Col. ii. 23.) which 
very explicitly inculcate the deity of Christ, 
whose genuineness has been called in question.* 
I have not introduced them in proof here, not 
because the most sound and thorough scholars 
suppose there is sufficient evidence of their 
being interpolations, but because there are 
enough passages in point, entirely above all 
suspicion, and it is undesirable to call in ques- 
tionable evidence. 

The assaults of skeptics have turned the at- 
tention of learned men to a thorough examina- 
tion of the genuineness of every passage in the 
Bible. The result of this examination has es- 
tablished those passages which are relied upon, 
in support of the deity of Christ, beyond the 
reach of enlightened and fair controversy. 

■ ■ ■ ■ j — •* 

* Note E, 



60 

Nor would I have you suppose, because I 
have introduced a large number of passages 
from the Bible in proof of Christ's divinity, that 
I do not consider one as sufficient. A single 
inspired declaration from God, clearly expressed, 
conveys its contained truth to us with as much 
certainty as a thousand could do it. The only 
advantage of several passages above one is, that 
by serving to explain each other, they render 
our perception of their meaning more clear. 

Some have thought it strange that the deity 
of Christ, if indeed it be a fact, was not more 
clearly taught in the scriptures of the Old Tes- 
tament. But when we examine those scriptures 
faithfully, we find it is taught there, in a rich 
variety of ways and language. Patriarchs, 
prophets, and saints, were inspired and ani- 
mated with blessed visions of Emmanuel, [He- 
brew, God-with-us.] " Abraham rejoiced to 
see his day, and he saw it, and was glad."* 
Isaiah saw his glory, and spake of him, as St. 
John informs us,t when he saw him " sitting 
upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his train 
filled the temple," and winged seraphim surround- 
ing him cried one to another, " Holy, holy, holy 
is the Lord of hosts ; the whole earth is full of 



* John viii. 56 ; Genesis xxii. 8. 



t John xii. 41. 



61 

his glory.''* David testified concerning him, " I 
foresaw the Lord always before my face ; for he 
he is on my right hand that I should not be 
moved;"! and we are instructed that the Angel 
of the Covenant, who communicated with Abra- 
ham, and Jacob, and Moses, and Daniel, and 
made repeated manifestations to ancient saints, 
was none other than He who became flesh and 
dwelt among us. 

But we shall all concede, that it was the ob- 
ject of the Xew Testament to teach additional 
facts, and throw light upon the Old Testament ; 
and consequently, to how great an extent the 
deity of Christ was revealed to the patriarchs 
and ancient saints, it is not important to inquire. 
How much has been revealed to us ? is the 
question. 

For the sake of presenting the argument on 
this subject, as it exists in my own mind, in its 
most simple form, I will make the following 
suppositions. Suppose, first, that no intimation 
was given to the ancient saints respecting the 
deity of the expected Messiah — that they were 
only taught to worship the One Being, Jehovah, 
1 in distinction from the idols of the heathen ; 
and that he had, by some means, placed this 

* Isaiah vi. 1—3. t Acts ii. 25. Ps. xvi. 8. 



62 

sinning world under an economy of grace, so 
that all who should repent and become obedient 
to him, might enjoy his favor. This, we will 
suppose, was as large a measure of revealed 
knowledge as was adapted to that age. If their 
belief and obedience were commensurate with 
what was then taught them by God, they ex- 
hibited the fruits of righteousness. They were 
sound believers. 

Suppose, again, that when Christ first made 
his appearance, and called his disciples, he gave 
them no intimations respecting the fact under 
consideration. So there were many other facts, 
respecting himself and his kingdom, which he 
did not teach them at first. Many began to 
follow him, with the expectation of receiving the 
emoluments of an earthly kingdom ; nor were 
they, for a long time, weaned from their worldly 
hopes, and truly converted to an experimental 
knowledge and enjoyment of that kingdom, 
which consists in righteousness, and peace, and 
joy in the Holy Ghost. Christ announced to 
his disciples, " I have yet many things to say 
unto you, but ye cannot bear them now. How- 
beit, when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he 
will guide you into all truth. " # 

* John xvi. 12, 13. 



63 

Suppose, again, that after the ascension of 
Christ, the Holy Ghost, who came to teach what 
Christ had not taught, and to finish the reve- 
lation to man, developed to one of the disciples 
the deity of Christ. Let John, if you please, be 
the honored one ; he was eminently " the dis- 
ciple whom Jesus .loved." And suppose that 
he, under guidance of divine inspiration, has, in 
a portion of Scripture entirely unambiguous, 
and above all exception genuine, transmitted 
this fact to the world. Let that portion be the 
first in his gospel. John i. 1 — 3, 14. " In the 
beginning was the Word, [Logos,] and the Word 
Was with God, and the Word was God. The 
same was in the beginning with God. All 
things were made by him, and without him was 
not any thing made that was made. And the 
Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us." 

Now it is nothing to the point, whence the 
origin of the term, Logos. No matter in what 
school it was found. A whole volume, contain- 
ing a mere history t)f the word, Logos, could do 
no more towards determining the qualities of 
the object to whom the apostle applies it, than a 
history of the word, George, could do, towards 
determining the qualities of our illustrious Wash- 
ington, to whom it was applied, nor any more 
than a history of the words, God, Lord, Deity, 



64 

&c, could do, towards determining the qualities 
of the Being to whom we apply them. — All these 
are terms taken from human vocabularies, and 
having a human origin. The apostle has him- 
self given an account of the object, to whom he 
gives this name. ' He was in the beginning with 
God, and was God, [implying at once a dis- 
tinction in the Godhead, and the deity of the 
Logos,] all things were made by him, and with- 
out him was not any thing made that was made; 
and he became flesh, and dw T elt among us/ 
Here then is a passage of unquestionable genu- 
ineness, whose import is perfectly explicit, and 
which teaches, as plainly as language can speak, 
the union of deity with humanity, in the person 
of Jesus Christ. 

Suppose, now, that this were the only passage 
in the Bible which teaches this fact. If I dis- 
believe the falSt, I virtually disclaim all con- 
fidence in the plenary inspiration of this apostle; 
and not only so, but of all the other apostles 
too ; for their inspiration is supported by the 
same authority which supports the inspiration of 
John. In my mind, the inspiration of the whole 
Bible is immediately shaken ; and I am hence- 
forth prepared to believe or disbelieve its con- 
tents, just as I please. 

On the other hand, as a consistent believer in 



65 

the revelation which God has deigned to make, 
I admit that it was given to this " beloved dis- 
ciple," to make this last and most glorious de- 
velopement respecting Jesus Christ. He turned 
the last key, and opened the last window of 
heaven, through which a flood of light pours, 
and rolls all the way through the revelations of 
past ages. Passages before obscure, are now 
rendered obvious. It is now clearly seen, that 
the great work of human redemption is achieved 
by a union of deity and humanity in the person 
of Jesus Christ. " Man that he might suffer, 
and God that he might redeem," the burden 
of the prophet's song, and the long expected 
Saviour, he now shines forth in full orbed splen- 
dor, the Sun of Righteousness in the heavens. 
To contend that the truth does not shine clearly 
now, because it did not in ages before, were no 
less preposterous than to contend that the sun 
does not shine clearly at noonday, because there 
was twilight in the morning. 

The same mode of argument will also apply 
to every passage, which ascribes to Christ an at- 
tribute which belongs exclusively to God. Is 
Christ declared to possess eternal existence? or 
omnipotent power ? or a title to religious wor- 
ship ? If either be true, he must possess deity. 
Do you talk of delegation ? What is eternal 
6 



66 

existence, but that which has no beginning ? 
What is omnipotent power, but that which 
has no greater 1 And, as God is true, who can 
be entitled to religious worship, but He alone ] 
The being who possesses these attributes, must 
be God, if there be any God, or if it be in our 
power to conceive of what constitutes deity. 

And now, my hearers, I appeal to your candid 
and Christian judgment. How does the argu- 
ment stand ? If a single passage, clearly in- 
culcating the deity of Christ, be sufficient to 
establish that fact, and if his inherent possession 
of one divine attribute, be proof of the same, what 
shall we say in view of all the passages which 
the Bible exhibits, in proof of this doctrine ; and 
also in view of the fact, that all the attributes 
which the Scriptures ascribe to God, they 
ascribe to Jesus Christ in language often re- 
peated, and as clear, strong, and pointed, as it 
can be made to speak 1 Is not the evidence 
complete ? and are we not called upon, as con- 
sistent believers,, to receive the sublime and 
glorious truth, that the Word was God, and 
became flesh and dwelt among us ? 

On this great fact, brethren, transcendently 
the most important in the annals of the world, 
and perhaps in the annals of the universe, rises 
the whole fabric of human redemption. It is 



67 

this, which at once brings God to the necessities 
of man, and restores man to friendship with God. 
It is this fact, seen in its true relations and be- 
lieved on with the heart, which renovates the 
soul of man, awakens him to new life, introduces 
him to blessed visions of eternity, gives him 
victory over the world, and exalts him to the 
dignity and glory of a perfect communion with 
the everlasting Father of the universe. 



DISCOURSE III. 



DEITY AND PERSONALITY OF THE HOLY 
SPIRIT. 



Matthew xxviii. 19. 

IN THE NAME OF THE FATHER, AND OF THE 

SON, AND OF THE HOLY GHOST. 

The Christian disciples were divinely com- 
missioned to publish through all the world, a 
religion recognising the object of religious 
homage as existing in Father, Son, and Holy 
Ghost. The deity and personality of the Father, 
all admit. The deity and personality of the 
Son occupied our last discourse. It now re- 
mains to exhibit evidence of the deity and per- 
sonality of the Holy Spirit, and to offer some 
general remarks respecting the trinity and unity 
of God. 



69 

When we have proved a distinction in the 
Godhead, and the deity and personality of the 
Son, finding the Holy Ghost connected with the 
Father and the Son, as if sustaining a relation 
to the Father similar to that of the Son, we 
have strong presumption that he is also a divine 
and distinct person in the Godhead. We will 
first notice a tew passages which inculcate his 
deity. 

In rebuking Ananias for his attempt to impose 
a falsehood on the apostles, who were acting under 
the special guidance of the Holy Ghost, Peter^ 
said to him. Acts v. 3, 4, "Why hath Satan 
rilled thine heart to lie to the Holy Ghost ? — 
Thou hast not lied unto men, but unto God. v 
By lieing unto the Holy Ghost, he lied unto God. 
Observe that the point of the charge here against 
Ananias, was, that he had not simply uttered a 
falsehood to his fellow men. but that he had lied 
to God, the Holy Ghost. 

1 Cor. iii. 16, 17. " Know ye not that ye are 
the temple of God ? and that the Spirit of God 
dwelleth in you ? — For the temple of God is 
holy, which temple ye are."' The meaning is 
this. The temple was consecrated to God, and 
regarded by the Jews as his special dwelling 
place ; in manifestation whereof was the Sheki- 
jiah, the symbol of the divine presence. Hence, 
6* 



70 

by a significant figure, the apostle informs Chris- 
tians, that when they become consecrated to 
God, or holy, as was the temple, God dwells in 
them in the person of the Holy Spirit. Because 
the Holy Spirit dwelleth in them, they are the 
temples of God. 

Observe now some of those passages which 
ascribe divine attributes to the Holy Spirit. 
1 Cor. xii. 8 — 11. " For to one is given, by the 
Spirit, the word of wisdom ; to another, the 
word of knowledge, by the same Spirit ; to an- 
other, the gifts of healing, by the same Spirit ; 
to another, the working of miracles ; to another, 
prophecy ; to another, discerning of spirits ; to 
another, diverse kinds of tongues ; to another, the 
interpretation of tongues ; but all these worheth 
that one and the self-same Spirit, dividing to 
every man severally as he will." Here the Holy 
Spirit is represented as controlling the elements 
of the physical and moral universe, working 
miracles, conferring on men a large variety of 
stupendous gifts and powers, and performing at 
his pleasure those acts, which it is the high pre- 
rogative of omnipotence to perform. 

The Holy Spirit is omniscient. Take the fol- 
lowing passage. 1 Cor. ii. 10, 11. "But God 
hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit ; for 
the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep 



71 

things of God. For what man knoweth the 
things of a man, save the spirit of man which is 
in him ? Even so, the things of God knoweth 
no man, but the Spirit of God." That is, no 
finite mind knows God perfectly, being unable 
to explore the deep recesses of his being ; but 
the Holy Spirit does, because He sees and 
knows all things. Or thus, no finite being can 
discern what is in another being's mind ; but 
every being can know what is in his oicn mind, 
by his consciousness. So no created being can 
discover what is in the mind of God ; but the 
Holy Spirit knows what is there, by his own 
consciousness. Morus observes, that the pas- 
sage attributes to the Spirit, "to know those 
counsels of God, which are known only to God, 
and are unknown to all others." # 

The Holy Spirit is also eternal in his exis- 
tence. Heb. ix. 14. " Who, through th^ eternal 
Spirit, offered himself." That is, through the 
Spirit whose existence is eternal. 

The Holy Spirit is also exhibited as an object 
of our religious worship ; and that, too, in the 
very same language which is the vehicle of wor- 
ship paid to the Father and the Son. " Go ye, 
and teach all nations, baptizing them in the 

* Scire consilia Dei, ei soli nota, aliis omnibus utiqua 
ignota. 



72 

name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the 
Holy Ghost." Thus, the religion which Christ 
commissioned his disciples to teach, acknowlr 
edges in one of its most solemn ordinances 
the same homage to the Father, and to the 
Son, and to the Holy Ghost. So also the apos-* 
tolic benedictions, which include the Holy Ghost 
with the Father and the Son, as a source of 
divine blessings. Thus, 2 Cor. xiii. 14, " The 
grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of 
God, and the communion of the Holy Ghost, be 
with you all." Passages inculcating the deity of 
the Holy Spirit, in a variety of forms, are dis- 
persed throughout the Bible. 

But it is unnecessary to dwell on this point. 
The main question here, is, whether there is 
that kind of distinction between the Holy Spirit, 
and the Father, and the Son, which is claimed 
in the doctrine of the trinity. The question 
is, whether the Holy Spirit is merely a divine 
act, or a divine agent which does act. Thus, 
when Christ informed his disciples that the Holy 
Ghost should come, in his stead, to teach and to 
comfort them, did he mean that a divine person 
of the Godhead is concerned in the illumination 
and spiritual life of his disciples ; even the same 
that is recognized by Trinitarians as the third 
person of the divine trinity ? That so Christ did 



73 

intend to instruct us, and that this distinction does 
really exist between the Father, and the Son, and 
the Holy Ghost, is conclusively evident, as we 
should suppose, from passages like the following. 

John xiv. 26. " But the Comforter, which is 
the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in 
my name, He shall teach you all things, and 
bring all things to your remembrance. " I am 
going from you, says Christ, but the Father will 
send the Holy Ghost, in my stead, to teach and 
to comfort you. The human personal presence 
of Christ was to be withdrawn, but the Holy 
Ghost was to take his place. Is not the Holy 
Ghost then, in some sense, a distinct agent from 
the Son, as also from the Father ? Can any 
thing be more evident ? 

Again, John xv. 26. " But when the Com- 
forter is come, whom I will send unto you from 
the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which pro- 
ceeded from the Father, He shall testify ofme." 
Is not the same distinction taught in this pas- 
sage, as explicitly as language can do it? 

So again, John xvi. 13. " Howbeit, when He, 
the Spirit of truth is come, He will guide you 
into all truth." 

Examine also the following passages. Matt, 
xii. 31, 32. " Wherefore, I say unto you, all man- 
ner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto 



74 

men, but the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost 
shall not be forgiven unto men. And whosoever 
speaketh a word against the Son of man, it shall 
be forgiven him, [it is a pardonable sin,] but 
whosoever speaketh against the Holy Ghost, it 
shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, 
neither in the world to come.' 7 — That is, neither 
in this or the coming age ; showing that the sin 
against the Holy Ghost was not confined to that 
age — not a sin merely against those miraculous 
operations of the Spirit, which characterized the 
apostolic age, but against that divine agent, 
which should still continue among men in the 
subsequent age of the church. Here the senti- 
ment is manifestly inculcated, that there is a 
sense in which one may commit sin against Je- 
hovah in the person of the Father, or of the 
Son, in which sense he does not sin against him 
in the person of the Holy Ghost. Is there not 
then a distinction between them ? Obviously. 
The idea is, that sin committed against the 
Father, the moral Governor — or against the Son, 
the Mediator, however guilty, has not upon it 
that stain of unpardonable guilt, which pertains 
to sin against the Holy Ghost, the illuminating 
and sanctifying agent. Sin against the Holy 
Ghost, is incorrigible sin against very special 
and convincing light, and against the agent, 



75 

whose peculiar office it is to renew the hearts 
of men. 

So again another evangelist, Mark iii. 28, 29. 
"All sins shall be forgiven unto the sons of men, 
and blasphemies wherewithsoever they shall blas- 
pheme ; but he that shall blaspheme against the 
Holy Ghost, hath never forgiveness." 

The personality of the Holy Spirit does not 
appear to have been very lucidly and specifically 
inculcated in the scriptures of the Old Testa- 
ment. Like many other things, it remained to 
be more perfectly taught by the Christian dis- 
pensation ; and it is among the last teachings of 
Christ. But none of his instructions seem to be 
I more explicit, and when we have recognised the 
- revealed distinction in respect to the Father and 
the Son, we are prepared to Teadily apprehend 
the same kind of distinction in respect to the 
Father and the Holy Ghost. 

There are other and strong evidences of the 
i trinity of God, besides the direct declarations of 
1 the Bible : but we have not time to notice them ; 
> — nor do I deem it necessary or expedient, to 
j conduct your minds away from the lucid declara- 
J tions of God, through a wilderness of profane 
testimonies and traditions ; or even the opinions 
of the primitive fathers. 

Although the ancient Jews had probably but 



76 

an obscure idea of the nature of the divine trin- 
ity, as unfolded in the Christian dispensation, yet 
there are convincing evidences that they had 
some idea of it. Their repeated special designa- 
tions of the Father ; of the Son of God, Son of 
man, Angel of the covenant; and of the Holy 
Spirit, Spirit of God, &c. are evidences that 
evangelical Jewish faith, recognized in Jehovah, 
the Father, the Messiah or Anointed of the 
Father, and the Holy Spirit, as in some sense 
distinct. 

Moreover, learned men generally admit, that 
the religious traditions and creeds of pagan na- 
tions have their origin in revelations primarily 
made to the Jews. They are supposed to be 
corruptions of a pure faith. If this be so, col- 
lateral evidence is very strong that the ancient 
Jews had some idea of a trinity in the Godhead. 
All the oriental nations, of which we have any 
knowledge — the Chinese, the Japanese, the 
Hindoos, the Persians ; also the Egyptians, the 
Grecians, the Romans, the Scandinavians, the 
Germans, and Gauls, in their ancient theological 
creeds and traditions, acknowledge a triad. In 
proof of this, in addition to the explicit testi- 
mony of profane historians, we have the testi- 
mony of ancient coins, medals, statues, ceno- 
taphs, &c. bearing inscriptions to this effect. 



77 

The early fathers and ecclesiastical historians 
immediately succeeding the inspired apostles, 
afford ample testimony to the doctrine under 
consideration. Barnabas, the companion of the 
apostle ; Justin Martyr ; Irenseus ; Theophilus 
of Antioch ; Clemens Alexandrinus ; Clement of 
Rome ; Athenagoras ; Hennas ; Tatian, bishop 
of Antioch ; Tertullian ; Origen ; Cyprian ; also 
Eusebius, the ecclesiastical historian ; Pliny the 
younger ; Celsus ; Philo ; and others of the 
primitive fathers and historians, however vague 
some of their speculations on this subject, all 
declare it, as their own opinion, or that of the 
apostles, that Christ w r as a divine Personage, the 
same who appeared to Abraham, and Lot, and 
Moses; the same who created all things; and 
with the Father and Holy Ghost, constituting 
the source of all being and blessing, and the 
object of all worship. 

Having stated our belief of the trinity of 
God, it may be well to state briefly what we 
understand by his unity. The term unity is 
sometimes applied to designate an individual 
thing ; but it is generally used as the abstract 
term, of which union is the concrete. In this 
sense we cannot predicate unity of that which 
has no union ; for it implies a consent of party. 
The unity of water, for instance, is the fact that 
7 



78 

as water it is one, consisting of the union of 
hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen. This illustra- 
tion is not of course pertinent to represent the 
nature of the distinction in the Godhead, which 
cannot be represented by physical or terrestrial 
things, of which that can be predicated of a 
whole which cannot of a part, but simply to 
illustrate the sense in which we now predicate 
unity of an object. By the natural unity of 
God, as taught in the Scriptures, we understand 
the fact, that, as a Being, he is One, existing 
in Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, possessing a 
union of these three persons in his being. 

It may be worthy of consideration, that unity, 
in the sense now defined, is a crowning excel- 
lence. There may be beauty in a solitary thing, 
but when we look with a scientific eye upon the 
creations of God around us, or above us, or 
upon the works of men — as upon a specimen of 
architecture for example — it is not so much a 
solitary thing as a union of things harmoniously 
conspiring in one object, this impress of unity, 
which delights us. 

Especially is this true in the moral world. It 
is not so much a solitary volition, as a union of 
them, originating as from the same source, and 
conspiring to the same end, thus bearing the 
character of a moral unity, which we admire. 



79 

It is a union of righteous volitions, emanating 
from one Being, in the Father, Son, and Holy 
Ghost, directed to one and the same object, and 
rolling onward, as by one mighty impulse, the 
moral universe towards perfection and blessed- 
ness, which enables us to predicate a moral unity 
of Jehovah, eminently glorious. These remarks 
are not of course in the way of proof, but merely 
to show that the doctrine of trinity in unity, or 
triunity, in the being of God, is not objectionable 
in a scientific or philosophical view. 

That there are mysteries involved in the 
trinity of God, is no more certain than that there 
are mysteries also involved in his unity, in any 
view of it. If by unity be meant one person, ap- 
plying the term person in precisely the same 
sense in which it is applied to a human person — 
there are not only philosophical difficulties in 
the way of predicating a human personality of 
an infinite being, but even the subject of per- 
sonal unity and identity itself, has exhausted 
some of the profoundest speculations of philoso- 
phers, and the mystery is still as dark as ever. 
If by unity be meant a mere unit, a solitary 
thing — no rational mind ever supposed that of 
God. If by the unity of God be meant, that 
there are classes of attributes, in some peculiar 
and divine sense distinct, existing in union in 



80 

one essence, and thus pertaining to one Being — ■ 
this is one mode of stating the trinitarian 
doctrine. 

Finally, if by the unity of God be meant sim- 
ply the unity of nature— the one grand principle 
of unity which we see impressed on the universe 
— an identification of God and nature — this is 
naturalism — neologism — pantheism. Nature and 
God are the same. In this view the language of 
Thomson, which, as poetry, is correct and 
highly beautiful, comes into the meaning of 
sober and profane prose. 

" These, as they change, Almighty Father, these 
Are but the varied God." 

This is idolatry of nature. The spiritual and 
living God is lost from the mind, and nature 
assumes his place. 

The idolater worships the sun, moon, stars, 
and all the most striking objects in nature, be- 
cause he supposes God and nature to be the 
same. Not far removed from this are the dreams 
of some neologists. Even Dr. Priestley, one of 
the most brilliant scholars of his age, but ex- 
ceedingly erratic in some of his theological spec- 
ulations, Mr. Coleridge observes, ran his mind 
on this track, till at last he came out with the 
bald proposition, that " God not only does, but 



SI 

is every thing."* This is hardly a step from 
pantheism, or that idolatry of nature, against 
which God, who is a pure spirit, has uttered his 
heavy anathemas. 

No portion of the Almighty is contained in 
any or all of his works. He is entirely trans- 
cendent. All nature is his — all his works praise 
him — but none of all nature is God himself. 
Before and above all his works, in his own mys- 
terious eternity, is He, from everlasting to ever- 
lasting. No finite intellect can comprehend 
him; — he is to us an ocean of infinite amaze- 
ment, fathomless, shoreless, boundless ! 

Every man then knows, or ought to know, 
that the trinity as well as the unity of God is a 
fact above the reach of valid objection, and 
within the reach of evidence. It is to be be- 
lieved if sustained by evidence, as readily as any 
other doctrine announced in the Bible. What 
then is the evidence? is the simple inquiry. 
Caricatures bestowed upon the divine trinity, 
and other doctrines connected with it, may in- 
deed serve for a time to prejudice and to be- 
wilder even sober and candid minds ; they may 
also afford amusement to thoughtless minds, 
though applied to the great and dreadful God ; 

* Note F. 



82 

they may answer well for declamation, and serve 
to help out a fine rhetorical flourish; but they 
cannot satisfy a mind, which is really in earnest 
to know the truth. That mind will soon have 
learned, that the mode of the divine existence is as 
high above us as the heavens are above the earth ; 
and that to affect to assail the trinity of God 
in this way, is utterly a vain attempt. What we 
do know, and what we do not know, respecting 
God, is still the question. All that was ever 
written, or that can be written, respecting the 
mode of the divine existence, will soon pass into 
oblivion with the dreams of the alchymist. For 
on this subject, both the Bible and all nature 
are mute ; from one end of the earth to the 
other, and through all the starry heavens, there 
is profound silence. 

Like every other book, the Bible is susceptible 
of abuse ; and no book ever written has received 
more. A superficial, sportive, wanton criticism, 
by violating the laws of rational interpretation, 
by taking passages out from their connection, 
by placing the literal by the side of the figura- 
tive, by being more in earnest to explain away 
the Bible than to unfold its divine contents, can 
insidiously and plausibly annihilate its legiti- 
mate import, or make it mean any thing and 
every thing at pleasure. So ascendant is tjig 






83 

will in the human mind, so effectually is it the 
prime and commanding organ of the soul's ac- 
tivity, that he who is determined not to believe, 
can always find plausible means of escape. His 
responsibility for so doing rests upon himself, 
and he alone must sustain it. As a moral agent 
his will is free, and for a right use of that he is 
responsible to a righteous moral judgment, 
Hence his obligation to believe what God has 
plainly taught, and to regulate his conduct ac- 
cordingly. If he refuse his assent to what God 
has taught, not because it is not sufficiently 
evinced, but because he does not choose to re- 
ceive it, he denies the power of a moral legisla- 
tion over him, and virtually disclaims allegiance 
to heaven. He is a wandering star. 

And as to all the attempts to obliterate from 
the sacred canon some of the passages which 
teach the deity of the Son and Spirit, to what 
have they at last amounted, in the judgment of a 
sound and sober scholarship? In a moment, the 
rude hand of licentious criticism can dash its 
blot across a passage, which contains some unde- 
sired sentiment ; but patient study and thorough 
investigation, in love with truth, will at length 
demonstrate its claim, and restore it. So it has 
been with the Bible, from the beginning. The 
divine hand, which dropped those golden pages 



84 

from the skies, seems also to protect them. All 
that can be said about interpolations and am- 
biguities amounts, in sober earnest, to very little, 
in evading the great fundamental truths of the 
Bible. It is a species of pedantry, which has 
little to do, with either brightening or obscuring 
the bolder image of divine truth. That image, 
designed for the observation of every eye, is too 
much like the sun in the heavens, to be thus ob- 
scured. We may call for the clouds to cover it, 
or we may shut our eyes upon it and complain, 
but still it shines. 

All maneuvering with the Bible to make it 
essentially different from what it is, to minds 
which are open to conviction, and which have 
the boundaries of knowledge and ignorance well 
defined, can be little better than a failure. 
Clearly prove to such minds, by the application 
of a candid and faithful exposition of the Bible, 
that not one of all its passages inculcates the 
deity of the Son and Spirit, and they will have 
done with the doctrine forever. Clearly prove 
to them, by the application of the same, that 
one passage of unquestionable genuineness does 
teach it ; and as sure as their faith in the Bible 
as a revelation from God is sound and consistent, 
they will firmly believe the doctrine. Their re* 
ligious faith is not floating, capricious, optional 



85 

All is fixed and definite. So long as they hold 
1 to the law and to the testimony, 5 as divine au* 
thority, they hold to all therein contained. 

Every man conversant with the history of the 
past, has made observations upon the vibrations 
of human sentiment. He has also noticed the 
interesting fact, that each successive age has 
been prone to think itself the wisest and best 
that ever existed. It is a pleasing compliment, 
which vanity loves to pay herself. Ambition and 
conceit are never more delighted, than when 
sporting with the opinions of those who have 
gone before us. Hence, both in religion and 
philosophy, a considerable part of the ambition 
of each passing age, consists in attempts to de- 
molish the work of the preceding. But as the 
business of demolition passes by, that of rebuild* 
ing commences ; — for a system of opinions, which 
.consists in little else than objections to the opin- 
ions of others, is too empty and baseless a fab* 
ric to stand long, with a generation of minds 
made for immortality. When all those who have 
been mainly intent on finding fault with others' 
opinions, and telling what they do not believe, 
have fairly told their important story, the wave 
recedes; and then, voices loud ' as the voice of 
many waters ' are heard to say, What do you 
believe ? 



86 

The immense interests and relations of the 
undying soul, demand a full, explicit, and posi- 
tive answer to the solemn questions which they 
propose. Such an answer ha^ heaven in kind- 
ness deigned to give. Is the testimony of the 
Bible sound ? Can we safely rest our immortal 
interest upon it ? All is at stake here ! The 
last hope of the soul is here suspended. Human 
conceit does not always suppose so, but so it 
certainly is. The man whose intellectual ap- 
prehensions of this subject are clear and correct, 
and who has also been thoroughly convicted of 
his sins and necessities, and has experienced the 
grace of that gospel which is the wisdom and 
power of God unto salvation, will sooner part 
with his existence than with the deity and atone- 
ment of Christ. With such firmness does his 
mind embrace the entire gospel. The language 
of his inmost spirit is, If ye take from me any 
portion of this gospel, which my experience has 
proved to be adapted to the exigencies of my 
moral being — which does provide a Saviour, and 
an Holy Spirit to take of the things of Christ 
and show them unto me, such as my soul need- 
eth — which does awaken my spirit to newness 
of life, and make every chord within me vibrate 
with holy joy — which does enkindle hope, ' full of 
immortality/ when all earthly hopes die — which 



87 

does remove the cloud intercepting my vision, 
and give me to see far onward into the bright 
regions of eternal day — which does convert 
mourning into rejoicing, and bid sorrow and 
sighing flee away — which does make the bed of 
sickness and pain as soft as downy pillows, while 
the voice of Jesus, all divine and gracious, is 
sweetly inviting the suffering believer to lay 
down his dust and be happy with him — ah ! 
trifle not with me here! What would ye do? 
If ye take from me this heavenly testimony, 
which by the grace of God does all this, then 
hasten, and provide something else as good in 
its place. If ye cannot do it, and the strongest 
efforts of human wisdom for many centuries have 
been unable to make any approach towards it, 
then away with your dreamy objections to the 
oracle of God, and your fond conceits of the 
sparks of your own kindling. Ye are not so 
wise as ye had supposed. The ' light that is in 
you is darkness/' Ye are ' blind guides.' Ye 
are even unconsciously conducting me back- 
ward into the dark ages. Your motives may be 
sincere, but ye have sadly overvalued your own 
wisdom. 'To the law and to the testimony. If 
ye speak not according to this word, it is because 
there is no light in you.' 

So the immortal spirit, for which the gospel 



88 

was designed, when awake to its deep necessi- 
ties, will ultimately speak out in spite of every 
thing. It demands no prophetic tongue to 
announce, that the sickly and capricious dreams 
of human imagination cannot long hold the 
place of the gospel, or stand in its way. Ever- 
lasting truth is on the march. The gospel of 
Christ, just as it came from the heart and hand 
of God, was designed for man, and he must 
have it. 

The doctrine contemplated stands in lofty and 
independent grandeur upon its own eternal 
foundation. It invites no human hand to make 
it stronger ; it defies all human hands to make 
it weaker. We have no wish to make it stronger 
than God has made it. On such a subject as 
this, we feel exalted above all disposition to dis- 
pute a moment with a handful of dust, which is 
so soon with ours to yield up the accountabl'e 
spirit, and sleep by our side in the grave. 
Peacefully shall we slumber together there, 
6 where the weary are at rest/ till the sound of 
the trumpet shall awake us, and summon us to 
appear before Jesus Christ, the enthroned Judge, 
whose deity is now questioned ! 

To the term trinity, however venerable with 
age, the intelligent and pious Trinitarian feels no 
special attachment, except as it is a convenient 



89 

term to use, any more than he does to the terms 
omnipresence, omniscience, and many other 
terms, which are not found in the Bible, but 
which men have adopted to avoid circumlocution. 
Things, not words, are to him the objects of 
importance. But while he would cheerfully 
relinquish the term trinity, if offensive to any 
Christian, to the facts which it is intended to 
express — the deity of the Son and Spirit — and 
all other essential facts pertaining to the being 
and character of that God who is the glorious 
object of his religious homage and supreme 
affections, he feels an attachment a thousand 
times stronger than all the cords which bind 
him to this mortal life — an attachment which 
must, like the being and perfections of God and 
the conscious existence of his own soul, survive 
all time r all changes, all worlds. 






DISCOURSE IV. 



MORAL VALUE OF THE DOCTRINE. 



1 Thessalonians v. 21. 
HOLD FAST THAT WHICH IS GOOD. 

The way to sound and consistent religious 
knowledge is plain. The wayfaring man, though 
unlearned, need not err therein. A very obvious 
maxim of common sense, which we apply to 
other subjects, we are to apply here. Whatever 
is not supported by good evidence, we are to 
reject ; whatever is supported by good evidence, 
we are to hold fast. Then are we sure to reject 
that which is of no value, and to hold fast that 
which is good. The mind which does other- 
wise, in any department of learning, is always 
in a mist. It sees many things obscurely, but 



91 

nothing clearly. It sees enough on many sub- 
jects to make objections to the opinions of others, 
but not enough to prove its own. 

Can you produce unquestionable testimony 
from the Bible, that He who was in the begin- 
ning with God and was God, who created all 
things, and without whom nothing was made 
that was made, who is omnipotent, omnipresent, 
omniscient, and an object of religious worship 
through all the heavenly w r orlds, became flesh 
and dwelt among us ? And is Jesus Christ the 
person intended ? Then you tell us of one fact 
taught in the Bible ; and that is the deity of 
Christ. And can you also produce unques- 
tionable testimony, from the same source, in 
proof of the deity and personality of the Holy 
Spirit? Then have you made it appear, that the 
Bible teaches a trinity of persons in the God- 
head. You have produced good evidence, and 
the doctrine is proved. We shall hold it fast — 
just as fast as we hold the Bible. We cannot let 
it go from our faith, without virtually renouncing 
allegiance to all testimony from that source. 
The greatest and most essential truths of the 
Bible would then be lost in uncertainty ; even 
the immortality of our souls, and all definite 
prospects of eternity, would be involved in doubt. 

This may not at first be fully apparent. While 
a man is yet standing near the point of diver- 



92 

gency, many may incautiously follow him, be- 
cause they see not the end from the beginning. 
They see not whither his course tends. But as 
he has virtually left the testimony of God, and 
cast his mind upon a wave, if it be active, ar- 
dent, and imaginative, it will soon be tossing 
upon a sea of dreams and conjectures, and may 
be driven into regions of even a more dark and 
cheerless infidelity, unless, awakened to his 
error, he is induced to return and fasten his 
faith on the firm word of God. 

It hence appears, that were the trinity of God 
an apparently fruitless and insulated doctrine, 
were we at present unable to see any form or 
comeliness in it, or any important purposes an- 
swered by it, still, as a fact taught in the Bible, 
we should hold it just as firmly as we hold the 
Bible, on the simple testimony of that book. 

I have premised this, that it may be seen that 
we are not about to resort to collateral and con- 
sequential evidence to support this doctrine. It 
stands in its own strength, entire and erect, 
upon the foundation w T hich God has laid for it in 
Zion. 

It is proposed in this discourse to contemplate 
some of the intrinsic excellencies and relative 
bearings of this doctrine, not for the purpose of 
proving it to your faith, though indirect proof it 
certainly is, but for the purpose of commending 



93 

it to your reception. It will appear that we are 
not simply compelled to believe that which we 
imust, but also invited to hold fast that which is 
good. The excellence of the doctrine respects 
the blessedness and glory of God himself, and 
the relations of God to his moral government. 

On the first point, we shall say but little. It 
is easy to cavil at the idea of any thing like so- 
ciety, intercommunion, or fellowship, in the 
Godhead ; but aside from the testimony of the 
Bible to the fact, which is sufficient to look all 
human cavils quite into insignificance, it may 
easily be seen that all the apparent force of the 
cavil depends on an assumed falsehood respect- 
ing the divine trinity ; which is, that the dis- 
tinction between the persons of the Godhead is 
the same in kind and mode as the distinction 
between three human beings. It is hence in- 
ferred, that the society of the Godhead is pre- 
cisely the same as human society. But this is 
not a subject to be thus disposed of. 

When we take a correct view of the divine 
trinity, and contemplate God as one being — one 
being as truly as man is one being, though ex- 
isting in a different mode — all the point of this 
poor cavil is gone. We even speak of an har- 
monious fellowship or communion between the 
three constituents of the moral man, reason, con* 
8* 



94 

science, and will, when harmoniously engaged 
in one and the same good object. How much 
more blessed is the being, man, with the harmo- 
nious operation of these three, than he could be 
with the possession and exercise of only one of 
them, if such an existence were conceivable. 
This is indeed a very remote approximation to* 
wards an illustration of the distinction in the 
Godhead. 

We suppose the distinction between the per- 
sons of the Godhead to be greater than the dis- 
tinction between reason, conscience, and will, in 
a man ; and yet less than the distinction between 
three individual men ; — so much less than the 
latter, as that God is essentially one Being ; and 
so much greater than the former, as that moral 
affections exist and are reciprocated between the 
persons of the Godhead ; so that the Scriptures, 
with all truth and fidelity, do declare that the 
Father loveth the Son and the Son the Father ; 
and that there is eternal, blessed society and 
fellowship of Divine Equals in power, wisdom, 
glory, and fidelity to the interests of moral gov- 
ernment, between the Father, and the Son, and 
the Holy Ghost. 

There is certainly nothing absurd or incredi- 
ble in this, nothing which militates against any 
view of the divine unity as taught either by na- 



95 

ture or the Bible ; and if it appear that the Bible 
does reveal it, any who may be disposed to cavil 
will do well to consider, whether they be not 
casting their folly and contempt upon the highest 
glory and blessedness of the Almighty. We are 
sorry to say, that we have sometimes, with much 
grief, observed in anti-trinitarian writings a dis- 
position to treat the doctrine of a social Godhead 
in this irreverent manner. 

u In the most Holy Three in One," says the 
late excellent Dr. Worcester, " we see what can 
never be seen in a single divine person. We 
see a society, infinitely perfect and blessed. 
When we turn our thoughts from the trinity to 
one divine Person inhabiting eternity in solitary 
existence, we find it impossible to conceive how 
he can be happy. We can form no conception 
of happiness without love, nor of perfect happi- 
ness where love has not an adequate object. 
But the most exalted creatures are infinitely 
below the deity ; the whole created universe is 
as nothing in comparison with him. If then he 
existed in one solitary Person, where could he 
find an adequate object of infinite love, and how 
could he be infinitely happy? When we con- 
template the Trinity, a far different view is pre- 
sented to our minds. God is love. The three 
adorable Persons, unlimited in all perfections and 



96 

excellencies, inhabit eternity together ; dwell 
everlastingly in each other, in mutual, perfect, 
unmeasurable love. Thus infinitely happy in 
themselves, they unitedly delight in communica-i 
ting happiness to their creatures. Their own 

SOCIETY OF BOUNDLESS LOVE AND BOUNDLESS 

happiness, is the archetype and centre of that 
holy, and blessed, and numberless fellowship of 
angels and of the redeemed from among men, 
who are to be 6 gathered together in one/ 
around the throne of everlasting glory, with im-» 
mortal joys, and unceasing praises. Call this 
mystery, mysticism, or what you please ; — it is a 
theme on which my mind delights to dwell, and 
which I cannot exchange for the solitary deity, 
and the philosophical heaven." 

We are disposed to touch lightly and cautiously 
on this theme, because we are aware, that to 
pursue it were entering too intimately into the 
bosom of the Almighty, venturing too far into 
the interior sacredness and yet unveiled glories 
of the Godhead, for creatures of yesterday still 
dwelling in the dust. It is a theme for us to 
study and know more of hereafter. But we may 
venture to interrogate the devout Christian, 
whether it be not often this view of God — this 
view of the social, exalted, holy blessedness of 
that everlasting Being dawning on his vision, 
and promising to brighten into the full orbed and 



97 

ever growing splendors of eternity, that enkindles 
his wannest and most melting devotions, and 
renders his closet, when he finds communion 
with God in the person of the Father, and of the 
Son, and of the Holy Ghost, the dearest of all 
earthly places. Is it not when he enters most 
deeply into sympathy with the beloved disciple 
of old, and feels with him the kindlings of the 
love which reigns and flows round in the persons 
of the Godhead, that he finds his heaven begun. 
It is believed that nothing serves more to en- 
kindle the benevolent heart, than contemplations 
of the infinite love and blessedness which there 
is in God. 

We might also safely propound to him the 
counter questions, whether he does not find, that 
when he departs from this life-giving view of the 
living God of love, and suffers his faith to 
degenerate into a cold, speculative, abstract 
notion of a philosophical Deity — a kind of soli- 
tary Power and Supremacy — he does not find his 
closet becoming desolate, and prayer a drudgery ; 
whether he does not find himself inclining to 
resolve every thing into the laws and operations 
of heartless Nature ; whether the life of divine 
love and the energies of divine faith do not 
languish in his soul; and finally, whether he 
does not come to look on death with dread, or 



98 

with a pusillanimous spirit, and on all his eternal 
prospects as dim and uncertain vision. 

No marvel. Faith has its seat in the heart — 
in the affections. When we contemplate God 
as a being of infinite affections, love, blessedness, 
we contemplate the mightiest cause in the 
universe tending to enkindle our own affections. 
If this cause be removed, and we contemplate 
him only as a solitary, heartless, philosophical 
Deity, the glory is departed from the Godhead, 
the Sun of Righteousness has lost its vivifying 
power, and little remains adequate to enkindle 
newness of life in the dead heart of sin. 

Respecting the illustration or display of 
God's glory, the bearings of his trinity are very 
clearly disclosed. "The darkness is past, and 
the true light now shineth," said the ' beloved 
disciple/ when provoking to love from contem- 
plations upon the " eternal life, which was 
with the Father, and was manifested unto us." 
It were fruitless to occupy time here in the inquiry, 
whether the first person of the divine trinity is 
called Father, from the paternal relation which 
he sustains to his creatures in that person ; and 
whether the second person is called Son, simply 
because of his incarnation ; and whether the 
third is called Spirit, because of his invisible 
efficiency ; but taking their names as they 



99 

have been given to us, we may go on directly 
to remark, that such is the divine economy 
and sublime perfection of the Godhead, that 
not only do the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, 
love each other, but they also glorify each other ; 
and thus it is, that Jehovah radiates and reflects 
the glory of his Eternal Being. 

It has been presumed by some, that were 
Christ truly possessed of deity, he would doubt- 
less have proclaimed it, as with trumpet tongue, 
the first thing he did. To say nothing of reasons 
which might deter him from an untimely, full 
disclosure of such a fact, as they might respect 
the human society in which he lived, it is sufficient 
to say, that such a presumption is taken, not 
from the conduct of God, but from the conduct 
of men. Our Redeemer, in the days of his in- 
carnation, was an exemplar to us, among other 
ways, by exhibiting the genuine modesty of 
heaven. His "works," not his words, praised 
him ; and a main object on which he seemed 
ever intent, was to glorify the Father. 

But follow him on to near the closing scene, 
and hear him there. John xvi. and xvii. " I 
came forth from the Father, and am come into 
the world ; again, I leave the world, and go to 
the Father," &,c. — " These words spake Jesus, 
and lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, Fa- 



100 

ther, the hour is come, glorify thy Son, that thy 
Son may also glorify thee : as thou hast given 
him power over all flesh, [referring to his media- 
torial reign,] that he should give eternal life to 
as many as thou hast given him. And this is 
life eternal, that they might know thee, the only 
true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent." 
That is, 'that they might see the glory of the 
only true God, as it shines in the Father, and 
also as it shines in the Redeemer, Jesus Christ/ 
This is evidently the meaning, as the context 
shows ; for Christ had just prayed that the office 
of glorifying each other might be reciprocated 
between the Father and the Son. And he im- 
mediately adds, " I have glorified thee on the 
earth; I have finished the work which thou 
gavest me to do. And now, O Father, glorify 
thou me, with thine own self, with the glory 
which I had with thee before the world was." 

Thus Jehovah, by the second person of his 
Godhead, in a manner suited to the condition 
and the apprehension of his creatures to whom 
the representation is made, reflects the glory of 
the first, and the first reflects the glory of the 
second. The Son glorifies the Father, and the 
Father glorifies the Son. 

Now let us pass on to the third person of the 
Godhead, and hear what the Spirit was to reveaL 



101 

John xvi. 13, 14. "When He, the Spirit of 
truth is come,'"'' said Christ, "He will guide you 
into all truth — He shall glorify me ; for he shall 
receive of mine, and shew it unto you. All things 
that the Father hath are mine; therefore said I, 
that he shall take of mine, and shcic it unto you.'' 
Thus the Son testified of the Spirit, and the 
Spirit was to testify of the Son. As the Son 
glorified the Father and Spirit, so the Spirit was 
to glorify the Father and Son. Accordingly the 
Spirit did take of the things of Christ, and show 
them unto the beloved disciple ; he did glorify 
Christ, together with the Father, by showing 
that all which the Father hath are his ; and the 
disciple has transmitted the faithful record of it 
to the world. 

He has also informed us, that when " in the 
Spirit on the Lord's day," that is, when on the 
Lord's day under the special illuminations of the 
Holy Spirit, he was favored with a vision of the 
heavenly world, he saw the myriads of celestial 
worshippers chanting their praises " to htm 

THAT SITTETH ON THE THRONE AND TO THE 

Lamb," in songs of lofty and eternal adoration. 
We can hardly resist an impulse to pursue 
this track, but we must forbear ; for we see it 
opening our way into a flood of brightness pour- 
ing out upon eternity from the face of the Al- 
9 



102 

mighty, too intense for mortal vision. But stand- 
ing here on this summit, we may cast one look 
over into the celestial regions, and catch some 
glimpses of the sun that shines there, while 
awaiting our introduction thither, blessed with 
eyes that can endure the light, and hearts that 
can endure the kindlings of those glories, which 
mortal eye hath not fully seen, or ear heard, 
or hath entered into the heart of man to con- 
ceive. 

We would then here simply remark, that it 
hence appears from the sacred Scriptures, that 
the revealed doctrine of a trinity in the being of 
God, implies a sublime peculiarity in the mode 
of his existence, by virtue of which in the per- 
son of the Father is reflected the glory of the 
Son and Spirit ; in the person of the Son, that 
of the Father and Spirit ; and in the person of 
the Spirit, that of the Father and Son ; and thus 
the sacred radiance is reflected and re-reflected, 
gathering brighter lustre at every reflection, 
until the high and Holy One, the everlasting 
God, who inhabiteth eternity, shines forth 
through all his works, in glory transcendant and 
divine. 

From the importance of the trinity as it re- 
spects the essential blessedness of God and dis- 
play of his glory, we should naturally pass next 



103 

to contemplate its importance as it respects his 
government of the universe. Here the subject 
becomes vast, quite beyond the reach of our pre- 
sent faculties to grasp. The immediate relation 
of the doctrine to the redemption and salvation 
of men, is however revealed in the Scriptures, 
and on this topic we shall particularly remark 
in the concluding discourse. Our remarks on 
its relations to the general government of the 
universe will be few and brief, as we have no 
wish to pursue the subject farther than our path 
is enlightened by the Scriptures. 

The principles of all perfect governments, 
whether human or divine, are essentially the 
same. The most perfect human governments 
include three distinct departments, legislative, 
judicial, executive. This has led many to sup- 
pose that something similar exists in the divine 
government, and the Scriptures certainly coun- 
tenance the idea ; although they do not instruct 
us very explicitly, or gratify our curiosity very 
bountifully, on this subject. 

But if such be the economy of the divine gov- 
ernment, that something like three departments 
exist in it, the persons engaged in each of them 
must exist in Jehovah, since the entire govern- 
ment of the universe devolves on him alone. 
Hence trinitarians usually ascribe the office of 



104 

moral government and legislation more particu- 
larly to the Father, that of providential govern- 
ment and redemption to the Son, and that of 
regeneration and sanctification to the Holy 
Spirit. There are many scriptures which favor 
this theory. 

We do not suppose, however, that analogies, 
drawn from any human governments, can very 
perfectly illustrate the mode of the divine gov- 
ernment, but they may help us to some impor- 
tant general views. One of the chief difficulties 
in framing a theory of the divine government 
with terms borrowed from human governments, 
so as to respond to all the instructions of the 
Bible, results from the various senses and lati- 
tudes in which terms are used by different per- 
sons and in different connections. For instance, 
providential government, in the largest sense, 
includes the entire system of means and opera- 
tions, subserving the end of moral government — 
such as the creation of worlds and beings, estab- 
lishing and controlling the laws of nature, ac- 
complishing the work of redemption, making a 
special revelation to men, ordering the events of 
life, death, resurrection, eternal rewards, &c. 
All these are a system of means subserving the 
end of moral government ; which end is the pro- 
motion of the divine glory, in the holiness and 



105 

blessedness of moral beings. The Scriptures do 
not ascribe all these specifically to the Son, but 
whatever work they do ascribe specifically to 
him, is in the department of providential govern- 
ment ; and as providential is subservient to moral 
government, as means to an end, hence the 
official subordination of the Son to the Father. 

The personal office assigned to the Son in 
the Scriptures, is that of mediator, atoner, and 
judge. He is mediator ; — " For there is one 
God, and one mediator between God and men, 
the man Christ Jesus ; who gave himself a ran- 
som for all." * Here it is asserted that Christ is 
the mediator between God and man, and consti- 
tuted such by his having assumed humanity. 
He is our atoner; — "For he hath made 
him to be sin [a sin-offering] for us who knew 
no sin ; that we might be made the righteous- 
ness of God in him." f He is our judge ; — 
" For the Father judgeth no man, but hath com- 
mitted all judgment unto the Son ; that all men 
should honor the Son, even as they honor the 
Father."! 

It is then plain from the Scriptures, that the 
personal office of the Son, is in the department 
of providential government. As providential is 

* 1 Tim. ii. 5, 6. t 2 Cor. v. 21. } John v. 22, 23. 

9* 



106 

subservient to moral government, in this depart- 
ment of course an office is assumed and re- 
signed, as the interests of moral government 
demand. When, in the progress of the divine 
government, it became necessary that the second 
person of the Godhead should assume the office 
of mediator, redeemer, and judge, towards our 
world, he assumed it ; when the point for which 
he assumed it shall be gained, he will resign it. 
" Then cometh the end, when he shall have 
delivered up the kingdom to God, even the 
Father ; when he shall have put down all rule, 
and all authority, and power ; for he must reign 
till he hath put all enemies under his feet. — 
And when all things shall be subdued unto 
him, then shall the Son also himself be subject 
unto him that put all things under him, that 
God may be all in all." * His mediatorial reign 
will then come to an end, and he will resign up 
the kingdom to the Father. He will no longer 
be mediator between God and man. 

We come next to speak of the office of the 
Spirit. The expression, Spirit of God, is a 
periphrastic mode of simply designating God. 
Thus, ' Whither shall I go from thy Spirit ? ' is 
the same as, ' Whither shall I go from thee ? ' 

* 1 Cor. xv. 24, 25, 28. 



107 

It is a mode of expression common in the He- 
brew Scriptures. Accordingly we read, that the 
Spirit of God moved over the chaos and dark- 
ness, and called up order and light ; by his 
Spirit he garnished the heavens, created Arctu- 
rus, Orion, Pleiades, and the chambers of the 
south, and all the hosts of the heavenly constel- 
lations ; by his Spirit he breathed into man the 
breath of life, and he became a living soul ; by 
the Spirit of God, Christ cast out devils, wrought 
miracles, and bestowed miraculous gifts ; by the 
Spirit he will raise the dead, awake the con- 
suming fires of the last day, and execute the 
final rewards. All these and similar expressions 
we believe to be only various modes of simply 
saying, God does these things. 'God is a 
Spirit.' They do not teach the personality of 
the Spirit, but simply that the Spirit is God. 

Still, if any are not prepared to recognize the 
Hebrew idiom, and insist that such expressions 
teach us that the particular office of the Spirit 
extends to all these things, they will yet see that 
even in all these he is acting only the part of 
executor in the government of the universe. 

The personal office of the Holy Spirit, is that 
of carrying into execution and effect the pur- 
poses of divine grace in renewing, comforting, 
and enlightening the souls of men. 



108 

The Holy Spirit renews the heart ; — " Accord- 
ing to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of 
regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost."* 

He is the direct and efficient cause of spiritual 
comfort ; — " And I will pray the Father, and he 
shall give you another Comforter, that he may 
abide with you forever ; even the Spirit of truth, 
[true Spirit,] whom the world cannot receive, 
because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him ; 
but ye know him, for he dwelleth with you, and 
shall be in you." f Christ knew that unregen- 
erate men would be skeptical in regard to the 
existence and office of this divine agent, be- 
cause he is invisible ; — the world cannot receive 
him, " because it seeth him not, neither knoweth 
him ; " but to those who have the internal expe- 
rience of the grace of the Spirit, Christ says, 
" Ye know him, for he dwelleth with you, and 
shall be in you" 

He is also the agent who imparts spiritual 
light to the minds of Christians. " The Holy 
Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, 
he shall teach you all things, and bring all 
things to your remembrance. "J Alluding to 
this promise the same disciple says, " But ye 
have an unction from the Holy One, and ye 

* Titus iii. 5, t John xiv. 16, 17. X John xiv. 26. 



109 

Jcnoio all things. — The anointing which ye 
have received of him ahideth in you ; and ye 
need not that any man teach you, but as the 
same anointing teacheth you of all things/'* 
&c. This was addressed not to the apostles, 
but to other Christians, and proves that the per- 
sonal office of the Holy Spirit is not restricted to 
his miraculous gifts in the apostles, but includes 
his comforting and enlightening grace in all 
Christian disciples. 

Many other scriptures will readily recur to 
you, in which the personal office of the Son as 
mediator, redeemer, judge, and also the personal 
office of the Spirit as renewer, comforter, en- 
lightener, are explicitly taught. These are 
given only as specimens. The personal office 
and supremacy of the Father as moral governor 
and lawgiver, has been shown in a previous dis- 
course. We have thus exhibited to us in the 
Scriptures the three persons of the Godhead, as 
sustaining the official rank of first, second, and 
third, in the divine government, bearing unitedly 
on the same great object — the glory of God in 
the moral perfection and blessedness of immor- 
tal minds. 

This is not tritheism. On the other hand, it 
gives us a consistent view of the essential unity 

* 1 John ii. 20, 27. 



110 






of God, in connection with other facts predicated 
of him in the Scriptures. It renders the mean- 
ing of many passages relating to him, otherwise 
dark and strange, lucid and natural. For in- 
stance, there is a class of scriptures which 
ascribe, in general terms, the whole work of 
creation, legislation, government, providence, 
redemption, grace, to God. Then there is 
another class of scriptures, as we have just seen, 
which assign distinct portions of this great whole, 
if we may so express it, in some peculiar and 
specific sense, to the different persons of the 
Godhead. 

This is a fruitful topic, and naturally leads 
into a world of theories and speculations respect- 
ing the mode of the divine government ; but it 
is our wisdom not to be wise above what is 
written — to advance no farther than the Bible 
enlightens our way. If we have transgressed 
that limit, we will retrace our steps, whenever it 
shall be shown that what has been said is not 
according to the Scriptures. 

From the preceding view it is manifestly im- 
material, as far as the object of our homage is 
concerned, whether we address our prayers to 
God the Father, or the Son. In either case we 
worship the same Being. But when we approach 
God to confess our sin in the licrht of a trans- 



Ill 

gression of the divine law, and in the light of 
the sufferings of Christ which it inflicts, and in 
the light of the grief of the Holy Spirit which 
it occasions, it is advantageous to bring the 
several persons of the Godhead into view, and to 
think of our sin, and confess it, as committed 
against the Father, and against the Son, and 
against the Holy Ghost. Thus the heart of sin 
is smitten at once with a tripple blow. In the 
trinitarian confession of sin, faithfully made, 
there is immense moral power. 

The same is true of adoration, prayer, thanks- 
giving and praise. 

As Christ is Mediator between God and man 
— the Redeemer and Saviour of sinners — and 
we are all involved in sin, we see the propriety 
of giving him a very prominent place in all our 
religious thoughts, feelings, devotions, hopes — of 
always approaching the throne of grace in 
this " new and living way."* We see also with 
what unerring wisdom the devout Stephen was 
guided, as are also all who follow his example, 
in commending by prayer his departing spirit to 
the Lord Jesus, who is now on the throne of 
redemption to save all, who with penitence in- 
trust their souls to him. 

* Heb. x. 20. 



112 

Having thus briefly noticed the moral value of 
the trinity of God, as it respects his own blessed- 
ness, the display of his glory, and his general 
government, it is proposed in the concluding 
discourse to contemplate its particular relation 
to the redemption and salvation of men. 



DISCOURSE V. 



MORAL VALUE OF THE DOCTRINE. 



Romans i. 16. 

FOR I AM NOT ASHAMED OF THE GOSPEL OF 
CHRIST J FOR IT IS THE POWER OF GOD 
UNTO SALVATION, TO EVERY ONE THAT BE- 
LIEVETH. 

In previous discourses we contemplated the 
evidences of the divine trinity as exhibited in 
detached portions of scripture testimony. This 
is a species of evidence, in which the doctrine 
shines here and there with a scattered bril- 
liancy. 

There is another kind of evidence which 
presents itself to the mind, whose eye is clear 
and single, in a solid luminous body, like the sun 
10 



114 

ascending the heavens in the full strength of his 
combined radiance. It results from taking a 
view of the general scope and connection of 
the entire whole of the divine revelation — from 
apprehending the great subject of the Bible as 
one glorious emanation of the divine mind — 
from contemplating the richness and unity of 
design in this mighty and benign movement of 
God towards the human race. 

We must rise to something great, sublime, 
unearthly, if we w r ould sympathize with a reve- 
lation from heaven on such a magnificent theme 
as God's everlasting kingdom and man's ever- 
lasting salvation. It is a frequent occasion of 
failure, that we bring to this revelation minds 
secularized, profaned, groveling, tending to re- 
duce to the same character with ourselves what- 
ever we touch. Instead of elevating ourselves 
to the high and mighty things of God, we bring 
down those high and mighty things to our own 
selfish and dwarfish sympathies. The man who 
goes to the Bible to learn nothing but what he 
knew before, will derive no knowledge from that 
source. 

As in the creation and government of the 
material universe, so in the divine revelation to 
mankind, we find the order of beginning, pro- 
gress, and consummation. The first facts oc- 



115 

curring in the Bible respecting the moral history 
of our race, are the creation of man as a rational 
and accountable being, his temporary obedience, 
and his subsequent fall, involving prospectively 
the apostacv of the human family. Salvation 
by mere law no longer possible, we next find an 
economy of redemption supervening; and hence- 
forth, in all his revelations to men, God treats 
them as a race of sinners, not only under a dis- 
pensation of moral law, but also of redeeming 
grace. 

NoW the atonement — the great plan of re- 
demption, by which " God might be just and the 
justiiier of him who believeth in Jesus" — begins 
to appear. The promise is issued, that the seed 
of the woman shall bruise the serpent's head. 
Gradually the plan unfolds. In the whole sub- 
sequent chain of providential events — in the 
accepted sacrifice of Abel, because, as the 
apostle informs us, it was offered through faith 
in the Redeemer — in the Abrahamic covenant, 
sealed by sacrifice — in the gracious provision of 
an ark to save the faithful from the flood of 
death which swept away the unbelieving — in the 
smoking altars of Israel, types of a coming 
sacrifice more precious than the blood of bulls 
and of goats — in the solemn faith of patriarchs 
— in the visions, songs, and predictions of burn- 



116 

ing prophets — the consummation moves and 
hastens on ; and the last prediction of the an- 
cient Oracle testifies, that the Sun of Righteous- 
ness is about to 'rise upon the world with healing 
in his beams,' The fullness of time at length 
arrives; — on the plains of Palestine, a heavenly 
choir is heard to sing, ' Glory to God in the 
highest, on earth peace, good will to men.' — 
The Redeemer is born ; nourished up to man- 
hood under the guardianship of angels ; accom- 
plishes the work of his assumed humanity ; 
suffers; dies; ascends to his primeval glory — 
having commissioned his disciples to publish his 
gospel through all the world, and having pledged 
the Holy Spirit to consummate his work and 
continue with his disciples till his final coming 
to judgment. 

Thus the great plan of redemption by Christ, 
is the subject of the Bible ; the Old and New 
Testaments are congruous parts of a stupendous 
whole— a gospel — "the power of God unto 
salvation, to every one who believeth." Com- 
mencing in paradise, and appearing on the first 
page of inspiration, it moves onward through the 
ages of more than four thousand years, garnish- 
ing the pages of the Bible with its increasing 
brightness, from Genesis to Revelation. At 
first, it is as a solitary star rising in the far east, 



117 

looking forth with mild compassion on the dark- 
ness and gloom enshrouding the world— a har- 
binger of day : — Next, a few sprinklings of solar 
light, and glimmerings of approaching morning, 
kindle along the horizon, and gradually blend 
and stream up the skies : — Now, the Sun himself 
begins to look forth upon the world, though not 
indeed at first in his full strength. As the 
natural sun, in his rising, mitigates his intense 
splendors by burying them in a soft cloud, so the 
Sun of Righteousness, as he rises with healing 
in his beams, partially hides the insufferable 
brightness of his divinity behind his humanity, 
till the time arrives in the wise order of Provi- 
dence for him to burst forth in his full orbed 
glories, and ascend to his zenith and throne in 
the heavens. 

The object of this plan of redemption is 
nothing less than to provide a way and means of 
pardon and eternal life to man, to pour back the 
last celestial light into his dark mind, to recover 
him to the knowledge of his immortal being and 
interest, to arrest his progress to ruin, to reno- 
vate his moral character and make him eternally 
holy and happy. The Omniscient, who alone 
penetrates the wonderous mechanism of the 
human soul, and explores the depths of that 
depravity into which it has fallen, knows the 
10* 



118 

nature and degree of the moral power requisite 
to reach and recover it. Such a power he has 
provided in the gospel. Accordingly we find 
that when the gospel is received in its original 
unmarred purity, attended with the Holy Spirit, 
it arrests the sinner in his course, delivers him 
from the dominion of sin, turns him to God, 
makes him a new creature in Christ Jesus, con- 
ducts him upward from sinful to holy pleasures, 
and dismisses him triumphantly at last from 
earth to heaven. But no sooner do you remove 
any portion of what is included in the entire 
gospel, than you endanger the salvation of the 
soul upon, which it is designed to act. Its di- 
vine capability is reduced, and the cause ren-f 
dered inadequate to the intended effect. 

It were presumption to aver, that God cannot 
make even a small portion of moral truth effect 
the renovation and salvation of man ; but we 
are certain that such is not his constituted mode 
of operation. In the kingdom of grace, as well 
as of nature, there is a provident adaptation of 
means to ends. When a whole gospel is given, 
a whole gospel must be received, or the infidelity 
which denies a part, will render powerless the 
rest. 

Were the contemplated doctrine, therefore, 
among the minor things of the gospel, it were 



119 

hazardous to annihilate its relative bearings in 
the complex system of revealed truth. How 
then does the urgency of its demand accumulate 
upon us, on perceiving that its obvious relative 
importance is such, that our reception or rejec- 
tion of it, must fundamentally and essentially 
modify all that appertains to our religious faith 
and practice. 

] . Our views of the natural character of man- 
kind, and of the great object for which God has 
given us the gospel. The goipel supposes man- 
kind to be in a state of positive alienation from 
holiness, and consequently needing, not simply 
moral culture, but positive redemption and regen^ 
eration as a divine gratuity. Annihilate the 
deity of Christ and the Holy Spirit, and the 
mighty movement of God for the redemption of 
mankind dwindles to insignificance ; — the object 
for which he moves, the salvation to be effected, 
and the glory redounding to himself and bless- 
ing to his creatures, correspondently dwindle 
away ; — the light of the glory of God, as it shines 
in the face of Jesus Christ, fades away into the 
light of nature, and the Bible becomes little else 
to us than a repetition of what we had previ- 
ously read, in more sparkling letters, on the face 
of the skies. Indeed so dim and powerless do 
the divine pages become, that unless a man from 



120 

cultivation or natural taste be susceptible to its 
literary attractions, or beauty of moral delinea- 
tions, he will find it difficult to maintain a very 
deep interest in that book. There remains 
nothing in the subject of the book, which can 
deeply and strongly interest him. Its command- 
ing, captivating, subduing power over his heart 
is gone. A moral essay, if his mind be sober, 
or a philosophical disquisition, if it be curious, 
or, if it be of the lighter order, a novel even, 
will interest and sway his heart more than that 
gospel, which is declared to be pre-eminently 

THE POWER OF GoD ! 

There is a passage in Coleridge so much in 
point here, that I presume to quote it. " There 
is a scheme constructed on the principle of re- 
taining the social sympathies that attend on the 
name of believer, at the least possible expendi- 
ture of belief — a scheme of picking and choos- 
ing scripture texts for the support of doctrines 
which had been learned beforehand from the 
popular part of the philosophy in fashion. Of 
course the scheme differs at different times and 
in different individuals, in the number of articles 
excluded ; but it may always be recognized by 
this prominent character, that its object is to 
draw religion down to the believer's intellect, in- 
stead of raising his intellect up to religion." Of 



121 

course, its tendency ever has been, and ever 
must be, to bring down all that is peculiar in 
revealed religion to simple Deism, and the light 
of nature. 

This will appear more clearly, if we consider 
how the doctrine we have contemplated affects — 

'2. Our views of the Christian atonement. Is 
the Lord Jesus Christ a merely ereeitcel being ? 
Then, his sufferings and death are in no essen- 
tial respect different from those of other religious 
teachers and martyrs. He died in testimony of 
the religion which he taught, and so did Stephen, 
and Paul, and Peter. He taught men to repent 
and love God ; and so did they. He told men 
that he was divinely commissioned to teach 
thus; and so did they. And finally, in proof 
of his sincerity and his divine mission, he laid 
down his life in the cause : an el so eliel they. 
Where then is that peculiarity in the sufferings 
and death of Christ, so repeatedly and urgently 
claimed throughout the Bible I 

But when you contemplate Jesus Christ as 
possessed of deity ; then, you appreciate some- 
thing in his sufferings and death infinitely di- 
verse, both in character and importance, from 
any thing in those of any other being that has 
ever lived and died in this world. You behold 
" God manifest in the flesh," suffering for sin as 



122 

the man Christ Jesus, enduring his sufferings as 
the mighty God, and thus giving the strongest 
manifestations of the feelings of the divine heart 
towards sin, and of God's determination to sus- 
tain forever the demands of holy law, of which 
men or angels can conceive. 

This peculiarity in the sufferings and death of 
Christ, is exhibited in the Scriptures as the essen- 
tial thing which constitutes the atonement for 
sin. In the cross of Christ, as an affecting ex- 
pression of the evil of sin, is furnished a power 
of motive, which secures the obedience of the 
holy and invites the penitence of the guilty, 
while mercy forgives and saves. 

Say you that God can pardon sin, and still 
honor his justice, and support his authority, and 
secure obedience to his law, without an atone- 
ment ? How do you know that ? Do you not 
know that God's government is a moral govern- 
ment — a government sustained through the in- 
fluence of motives ? Do you know that the 
principles of moral government can admit of 
pardon without atonement? Do you know that 
myriads, now obedient, might not fall from their 
allegiance to heaven, were this expression of the 
evil of sin removed or diminished, while mercy 
is bestowing pardon 1 Do you know this ? If 
not, then, as a wise man, never again say that a 



123 

God of love and wisdom can forgive sin, without 
an atonement. Never again say, that the grand 
peculiarity in the cross of Christ, which was " to 
the Jews a stumbling block, and to the Greeks 
foolishness,"* is an unnecessary intruder into the 
sublime system of God's moral administration. 

It is this which sustains the sanctions of the 
divine law, while mercy pardons the guilty peni- 
tent. It is this which shall make heaven and 
earth to know, that justice and mercy are en- 
throned in eternal union on high. It is this 
which imparted inspiration to such scriptures as 
the following — " For he hath made him to be 
sin [a sin offering] for us w'ho knew no sin, that 
we might be made the righteousness of God in 
him."f " Christ hath redeemed us from the 
curse of the law, being made a curse for us."J 
" Christ our passover is sacrificed for us."§ 
" Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation, 
through faith in his blood, to declare his right- 
eousness for the remission of sins that are past."|| 
" Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away 
the sin of the world. "fl " Who his own self 
bare our sin in his own body on the tree,"** 
" We have redemption through his blood. "ft 

* 1 Cor. i. 23. f 1 Cor. v. 21. { Gal. iii. 13. 

§ 1 Cor. v. 7. || Rom. iii. 25. Tl John i. 29. 

** 1 John i. 7. tt Eph. i. 7. 



124 

"He was wounded for our transgressions, he 
was bruised for our iniquities, the chastisement 
of our peace is upon him, and by his stripes we 
are healed."* It is this which exhibits the suffer- 
ings and death of Christ, as furnishing the ante- 
type to all the expiatory offerings and sacrifices 
of the Jews, which, we are informed, were typi- 
cal of that one great offering of Christ, by which 
he hath perfected forever them that are sancti- 
fied.f 

3. Our estimation of the love of Christ, as 
manifested in his sufferings and death. Is he a 
mere creature 1 What so distinguished an act 
of kindness in him, to lay down his life to estab- 
lish his religion and confirm the faith of his 
disciples ? Have not hundreds of others done 
the same ? It was only travelling up from ob- 
scurity and reproach to distinction and glory. 
Before his suffering he was an obscure man ; 
his name was scarcely known, even in Pales- 
tine ; — but after it, and by it, he was exalted to 
immortal praise. His name was proclaimed over 
the earth as Lord and King, and sent in triumph 
through coming ages down to the end of time. 
How many from the long catalogue of human 
ambition would rejoice to procure to themselves 
an immortality in the same way. 

* Isaiah liii. 5, 6, t Heb. x. 



125 

But is Christ "God manifest in the flesh"? — 
and, as God, has he dwelt from eternity in the 
effulgence of heaven's glories ? Then indeed do 
we appreciate in him an exhibition of conde- 
scending and amazino love for us. Then he 
appears, not as one travelling up, into a previ- 
ously unpossessed greatness and glory ; but as 
one travelling down, from the glory which he 
had with the Father from eternity, into obscurity, 
shame, suffering, and death. Then you under- 
stand what is intended by the declaration, that 
" though rich, for your sakes he became poor." 
Then you perceive a significant meaning in all 
those passages, which represent the love of Christ 
towards this world as infinitely surpassing all 
earth-born affection. It is then, that the love of 
Christ constraineth us. 

4. Our estimation of the love of God the 
Father, in giving his Son to die for us. Is 
Christ a mere creature ? Then I cannot per- 
ceive any so distinguished an act of kindness on 
the part of God the Father, in giving him to die. 
Thousands of his creatures he has given to die, 
for a far less object than this. But is Christ 
truly divine ? and has he existed from eternity in 
the bo"som of the Father '? Then we perceive a 
most illustrious meaning in the declaration, that 
" God so loved the world, that he gave his only 
11 



126 

begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him 
should not perish, but have everlasting life."* 
God may declare to us, in language a thousand 
times repeated, that he loves us and desires our 
salvation ; but never does he make so perfect 
demonstration of his unspeakable love, as when 
for our sake he gives the everlasting Son of his 
bosom to become incarnate, like one of us, " for 
the suffering of death. "f 

I know we are told by some, that it were 
injustice in the Father to permit the innocent to 
suffer for the good of the guilty. But where did 
they learn this ? Surely not in the school of 
analogy ; — they read not this in nature's book ; 
for injustice or not, it is a matter of fact, that 
he does thus, the w r orld over. The innocent are 
continually suffering by the sins of the guilty ; 
and this is the most malignant aspect of sin, 
so exhibited in the cross of Christ, that the sins 
of mankind should inflict such agonies on such 
an innocent and glorious being. 

We must moreover remember that Christ was 
willing to suffer. Possessed of true divinity, he 
was also possessed of divine benevolence, and 
therefore chose to suffer for guilty man. He 
saw, that by a temporary humiliation and suf- 
fering in his illustrious personage, substituting, 

* John iii. 16. t Heb. ii. 9., 



127 

it may be, in a great measure, the character of 
the sufferer for the amount of suffering, he could 
impart that impress to moral motive, and that 
sanction to the law of heaven, which must other- 
wise be imparted by the eternal sufferings of all 
his redeemed. He could thus support the throne 
of heaven, and at the same time save an amazing 
amount of wo! He could magnify the law and 
make it honorable, sustain and even increase the 
existing motives to holiness on the minds of all 
voluntary agents, and thus bind their allegiance 
to the eternal throne, in the very act by which 
he opened the gate of heaven to guilty millions, 
and invited them to repent and enter in. What 
tongue shall ever fully announce the unspeakable 
glory of the cross of Christ, when thus beheld ? 
Through all heaven it radiates, so resplendent 
and dazzling that even angels are startled at the 
sight, and uttering their thrill of joy " strike a 
new note in bliss. " 

Was it then injustice in the Father, to give 
his Son to die thus for man's redemption? In- 
justice ! It was the highest conceivable act of 
kindness. It was Jove — love everlasting, and as 
high as heaven — in the Father, to give his Son 
to die, as it was also in the Son to be ivilling 
to die ; not, as slander will have it, to make the 
Father merciful ! but to remove all obstacles in 
the way of his mercy, that it might burst forth 



128 

from its everlasting fountain, and roll down to 
earth, to pardon and save repenting sinners. 

5. Our view of the evil of sin, and consequent 
inducement to repent. Our view of the evil of 
sin, as expressed by the sufferings of Christ, is of 
course measured by our estimate of the personage 
who suffered. A small evil costs but a small 
sacrifice. Is Christ a mere creature 1 To what 
then do his humiliation, sufferings, and death, 
on account of sin, amount ? Do they amount to 
an adequate expression of its guilt? Can I feel 
that the transgression of the divine law is indeed 
a crime worthy of the sanction ordained by 
heaven — worthy of eternal punishment — when 
the temporary suffering of a mere creature can 
sustain that sanction ? 

But do I contemplate the Lord Jesus Christ, 
as " God manifest in the flesh 1 " Does the 
Eternal Word thus lay aside his glory, descend 
and veil himself in humanity, submit to death, 
even the death of the cross, before a sin can be 
forgiven 1 How great then its evil ! And has 
the Lord of glory suffered thus for sin ? — for my 
sin ? Then shall my soul abhor it ! I will be 
crucified with Christ. When I would fasten 
the sentiment with indelible impress on my 
heart, that sin is the abominable thing which 
God hateth ; when I would discover the dreadful 



129 

guilt of the soul that loves it ; when I would 
hear the mighty eloquexce of God pleading 
against it ; then, let me look and behold the 
Lamb of God agonizing for it on the cross! 

Did any of you hear it whispered, that a view 
of the expiatory sufferings and death of Christ 
is calculated to diminish the motives to a virtu- 
ous and holy life? What a libel! on both the 
wisdom of God, and the heart of man. I con- 
fess, brethren, though I believe unregenerate 
man entirely depraved, I had never dreamed 
that he was depraved to such a degree as this. 
I know not how far mercenary spirits may be 
impelled in a line of ostensive obedience, by a 
cringing fear of penalty and prospect of reward; 
but this I do know, that an appeal of unmerited 
kindness — an appeal of love — love unto death — 
made directly to the moral sympathies of the 
soul, is the most powerful and prevalent appeal 
that is ever made ; — and truly I had not ex- 
pected that the same lips which deny that man 
is depraved, would also in another sentence deny 
him the possession of even one chord in his soul 
to vibrate to an appeal of love! And such an 
appeal as Christ crucified ! This were depravity 
with a witness. The man who has nothing in 
his soul to respond to an act of kindness, is not 
only destitute of holiness, but, it would seem, of 
11* 



130 

even the moral elements from which holiness 
can be formed. Such an one would seem to be, 
not only an entire sinner, but a hopeless one, 
If any moral motive can sway the heart, it is 
love, making a sacrifice for our good. Talk to 
me of penalty and reward; still my sin is sweet, 
and I will not let it go. But tell me its evil is 
so great, that it cost the sacrifice of the Son of 
God ; and that God the Father so loved me, as 
to give his only begotten Son to die for my re- 
demption, — tell me this, and my soul shall vibrate 
in a moment. This is argument I cannot resist, 
It is the argument of Christ crucified. I will 
abandon my sin, and give myself up a living 
sacrifice in eternal allegiance to God: If I do 
not, if the Holy Spirit do not render this motive 
successful, then know that other motives come 
in vain. 

6. Our view of ichat is implied by faith in 
Christ. Is Christ our Redeemer simply as our 
teacher and exemplar ? Then, faith in him is 
a simple belief that he is such ; and as such is 
entitled to our obedience. 

Is he also our Redeemer as the eternal Word 
incarnate for the suffering of death, to make 
expiation for sin ? Then, faith in him is not 
simply a belief, that he is our teacher and exem- 
plar ; but also a cordial reliance on his atoning 



131 

sacrifice, as the ground of our pardon. Here is 
the foundation that is laid, which is Jesus Christ; 
other than which no man can lay, on which 
immortal hope is built.* Resting here, the 
troubled conscience finds sweet repose. Here 
is the full significance of Christ crucified. Here 
is seen the bow of promise encircling the cross 
— hope springs up afresh — day dawns, and the 
day star arises in the heart — gratitude to God 
begins to burst forth in spontaneous tribute from 
the soul — the heaven of the redeemed is now 
begun, and its everlasting song commences, 
" Thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us 
to God by thy blood. "t 

We might proceed to notice several other fun- 
damental points, in which our religious views, 
and consequently our religious character, will be 
seriously and radically affected by our receiving 
or rejecting the deity of Christ ; and also the 
same, in respect to the deity and personal agency 
of the Holy Spirit, — particularly regeneration, 
sanctification, perseverance, &c. But our time 
does not permit. Sufficient has been said to 
evince the important relative bearings of the 
doctrine under consideration. 

A mere abstract belief of the divine trinity, is 

■ 1 Cor. iii. 11, t Rev. v. 9. 



132 

doubtless of as little avail as a mere abstract 
belief of the divine ubiquity, or omniscience ; but 
the implied fact of the deity of Christ and the 
Holy Spirit, giving divine life and power to the 
gospel, imparting all that is peculiar, heavenly, 
sublime, glorious, to the glowing image of the 
revealed religion, is not less important than the 
gospel itself. Go, dethrone yonder sun from the 
skies, and persuade men that this world has as 
much light and heat as before ; then may you 
remove this moral sun from my soul, and per- 
suade me that I have lost nothing ! 

The question at issue results ultimately in 
this ; — Whether the revealed religion is seriously 
a thing of great importance, or whether it is 
not ; whether this world is really in a state of 
sin and condemnation, such as to need a truly 
gracious economy dispensing atonement and 
mercy, or whether such is our condition that of 
atoning mercy we have no need, and mere moral 
culture will suffice ; whether the gospel of Christ 
is indeed the power of God unto salvation, or 
whether our salvation, such as it is, and about 
all we are to expect, is tolerably secure without 
it, and to call the gospel the power of God is the 
language of hyperbole ; whether there has really 
been a mighty movement on the part of God in 
our behalf, so as to authorize and awaken a cor- 



133 

respondent movement on our part, or whether 
God has done but little for us, and expects us to 
do but little in return ; whether, in short, sub- 
jective religion be little else than a prudent and 
refined indulgence of " the lusts of the flesh, the 
lusts of the eve, and the pride of life," or whether 
it be man really regenerated to Christ, in the 
recovered dignity of rational immortal being, 
with soul erect and treasures in heaven, building 
a pillar of golden thought from earth up to the 
throne of God. 

Do you, my hearers, admit the doctrine which 
we have contemplated, and the doctrines which 
spring from it, as revealed truth? Do you be- 
lieve, that when there was no eye to pity, and no 
arm to save us, the eternal God descended to 
earth, became " manifest in the flesh," wrought 
out salvation, proclaimed redemption, ascended 
on high to make intercession, commissioned the 
Holy Ghost to renew and sanctify men and at- 
tend his gospel to the end of time ; and that 
they who receive this gospel, receive power to 
become the sons of God ? — In a word, do you 
receive the evangelical system as the true system 
of religious faith, which inspiration hath taught, 
and which man doth need. So far it is well ; 
but suppose not that an evangelical creed is tan- 
tamount to a pious heart. Receive not this 



134 

truth in cold heartless abstraction. Believing 
that God has moved thus earnestly for you, be- 
lieve also that you are called upon to move 
earnestly too. Religion, in this view, presents 
itself to you as the grand object of being — the 
amazing reality, for which all things exist, 
commanding your first and most earnest atten- 
tion. It presents God Almighty as calling to 
you, in a voice so loud, so earnest, so kind, that 
you can give no adequate response to his call, 
till you respond with the whole heart. It is 
a call descending into the deep fountains of the 
soul, and bidding them to move and pour forth a 
tribute to redeeming love, 

Appreciating the ' exceeding riches of God's 
grace in his kindness towards you in Christ 
Jesus,' you will appreciate the demand for your 
own efforts, to ' strive' for salvation.; not indeed 
by contending with the contentious, or hurling 
weapons of wordy combat at any who may choose 
to dispute rather than obey the gospel ; nor yet 
by attempting to make the ' narroiv way that 
leadeth unto life ' a broad way, but by entering 
upon it, just as it is, with ready and elastic step. 
The King hath made it, and he hath blessed it ; 
— it is the King's highway to glory — none can 
make it better. If it be narrow, it is safe. Al- 
ready hath the Captain of salvation conducted 



135 

millions of the redeemed upon it to Mount Zion', 
with songs and everlasting joy. 

O, my friends, what everlasting riches are set 
before you in the gospel of Christ ! How can 
. you despise them ? Consider that in propor- 
tion to what God hath thus done for you, is the 
obligation under which you are laid, and the 
final condemnation under which you must fall, 
if you do not meet the demand. How can you 
escape, if you neglect so great salvation ? The 
gospel places you on midway ground, whence 
you must eternally rise or sink. Carry your* 
selves forward in prospect into the ages of eter- 
nity, and see yourselves shining and rejoicing 
with the angels of light, and singing with the 
redeemed the song of Moses and the Lamb, or 
sunk down into hopeless contempt and misery 
w r ith the devil and his angels, according as you 
obey or refuse that gospel which is the power of 
God unto salvation : and say, will you not re- 
ceive the gospel with all its benign energies into 
your soul ? — will you not immediately obey it ?— 
will you not part with all for Christ ? — will you 
not make it your first object to seek the king- 
dom of God and the righteousness thereof? 

Do this, and although your beginning be 
small, though your foundation be still in the 
dust, though your sins press heavily upon you 



136 

and you feel helpless as infancy ; you will feel a 
divine hand let down to you from the skies, and - 
you will see a way opening bright before you 
into th^ holy of holies on high. The faith which 
is " the victory that overcometh the world " *' 
will be yours, and hope full of immortality will 
awaken new joys in your heart, and inspire with- 
in you the apostolic persuasion, f that " neither 
death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor 
powers, nor things present, nor things to come, 
nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, 
shall be able to separate us from the love of 
God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." 

Having thus received Christ, you will soon 
begin to realize, with delightful surprise, the 
compass and fullness of blessings which you have 
hitherto despised, secured to us in the fact that 
the high and lofty One who inhabiteth eternity 
has in his Son and Spirit come down to us, and 
entered into the sympathies and necessities of 
our existence in the flesh. " He that spared not 
his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, 
bow shall he not with him also freely give us all 
things ? " 

In the chamber of sickness and suffering, we 
will speak of a present Saviour, who has also 

* 1 John v. 4. t Rom. viii. 8, 9. 



137 

i suffered in the flesh, and can be touched with 
the feeling of our infirmities. 5 

When assembled for worship, and reminded 
of Christ's promise given to encourage his dis- 
ciples, that ' where two or three should assemble 
in his name he would be in the midst of them/ 
we will remember his ability to fulfil his 
promise. 

When we see lost sheep scattered and wan- 
dering upon the dark mountains, we will call to 
them in the name of the " good Shepherd," and 
assure them that his omniscient eye is upon 
them, and his kindness inviting them into the 
'green pastures.' 

When we see the desponding Christian ready 
to faint with fear, in obedience to our duty to 
1 comfort the feeble minded and support the 
weak,' we would apply the potent argument of 
Paul, ' If, when we were enemies, we were 
reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much 
more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his 
life ; ' and thus inspire the sentiment of Christian 
triumph, ' I know in whom I have believed, and 
am persuaded that he is able to keep that which 
I have committed unto him against that day.' 

Should we ever vainly attempt to subdue the 
hard impenitent heart of sin, by simply holding 
before it an image of the moral beauty of virtue, 
12 



138 

despairing of thus melting down ice with moori 
beams, we would present the sun, shining forth 
in his glorious power. 

When we look abroad over the great mass of 
depraved human passions, and behold them 
heaving and tossing in angry rage, like the 
troubled sea lashed by a tempest, aware of 
human impotency to control them, we will con- 
template the cross of Christ, as the mighty 
instrument of heaven's ordaining, to smite dowrf 
pride, envy, lust, rebellion, and lay a subju- 
gated world in meek and quiet homage before 
an Almighty Saviour. 

As often as we accost those, in whose mind 
is nothing but the image of things visible, hav- 
ing no confidence but in what appears, because 
they have not ' heard whether there be any Holy 
Ghost/ we would assure them that there really 
is a Holy Ghost in the world, under the direction- 
of Christ, imparting energy to truth, when faith- 
fully invoked, and insuring its success. 

As often as we find those to whom the gospel 
would bring ' glad tidings,' bending beneath a 
burden of sins and anxieties, we will address to 
them the invitation of Christ — ' Come unto me, 
all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will 
give you rest/ assuring them that he who gave 



139 

the invitation was not only once in Judea, but is 
now present, so that they can come to him, and 
he can give them rest. 

When called to administer and receive the 
Lord's supper, we will remember that Christ, 
whom we honor, is present to accept and bless 
the ordinance. 

When called to administer or receive bap- 
tism, 'in the name of the Father, and of the 
Son, and of the Holy Ghost,' we will con- 
template the presence of the Father, Son, and 
Holy Ghost, approving the solemn ordinance, 
and accepting our offering. 

When we have conducted a Christian pilgrim 
to the verge of his mortality, and see him about 
to resign himself to the dust, then will we re- 
mind him of an almighty Redeemer, ' the resur- 
rection and the life,' who was able, as he informed 
us, to lay down his own life and to take it again; 
and who is also able to redeem the believer's life 
from the dust, and clothe him with immortality. 

We remember that Christ said to his disciples, 
' I go to prepare mansions for you.' It is an 
animating thought, as we move on towards the 
end of things that are seen, to an otherwise dark 
and cheerless eternity. And as often as we see 
this green earth robed in living charms ; as often 
as we lift our eyes to heaven, and behold the 



140 

sun walking in his strength by day ; and the 
moon in her silent majesty by night ; and the 
wide firmament bespangled with stars, all shin- 
ing to their Maker's praise — and contemplate 
this as the workmanship of that same Being, 
who said to his disciples, " I go to prepare man- 
sions for you " — then will we consider how glori- 
ous must those mansions be ! Did he bestow 
so much splendor on this temporary abode of 
man ? O, then, how surpassing splendor must 
heaven be — the New Jerusalem — the City of 
God — where Christ himself will shine with his 
redeemed forever, in the glory of the Father ! 
In that happy kingdom may we be gathered, 
through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of 
the truth, having our robes washed and made 
white in the blood of the Lamb, and our harps 
tuned to sound in eternal concert the loud an- 
them of heaven, " Blessing, and honor, and 
glory, and power, be unto him that sit- 
teth on the throne, and unto the lamb." 
Amen. 



12 



APPENDIX. 



Note A. 



Ecclesiastical history affords abundant and 
melancholy illustrations of this truth. Not only in 
defending important doctrines, but also in maintain- 
ing or confuting unimportant dogmas or serious 
errors, have the energies of Christendom been often 
drawn too exclusively to some one ruling topic of 
the age. 

In the second century, under the influence of the 
Platonic philosophy, a large proportion of the men- 
tal energies of the church were turned to a profit- 
less speculation respecting the manner of the soul's 
existence and retributions after death. "Jesus and 
his disciples had simply declared, that the souls of 
good men were, at their departure from their bodies, 
to be received into heaven, while those of the 
wicked were to be sent to hell ; and this was suffi- 
cient for the first disciples of Christ to know, as 
they had more piety than curiosity, and were satis- 
~ed with the knowledge of the solemn fact, without 
ny inclination to penetrate into its manner, or to 
pry into its secret reasons. But this plain doctrine 
»vas soon disguised, when Platonism began to in- 

iect Christianity." Mosheim Ecc. His. vol. i. pp. 
.50, 152, etc. The consequence of course was, to 



144 

draw off the hearts and energies of Christians from 
vital piety and the practical duties of religion, to 
discussions and speculations, upon subjects of no 
possible utility, and on which no knowledge could 
be gained. 

In the third century, as the result of closet specu- 
lations and controversies, the idea was advanced 
H that Christ had established a double rule of sanctity 
and virtue — the one of a lower order, the other more 
sublime ; the one for persons in the active scenes 
of life, the other for those, who, in a sacred retreat, 
aspired after the glory of a celestial state." Ibid. 
v. i. pp. 157, 158. This resulted in the doctrine of 
ascetism, attenuation of the body, and celibacy ; 
whence followed a new and different standard of 
piety from that taught in the Bible, and fhe great 
practical error of papacy, that they are the most 
holy men and women, who bury themselves from 
the world in a monastery, and most effectually 
transgress the grand law of Christian duty towards 
mankind, as taught by Christ in Matt. v. 16, Luke 
xix. 13 — 26 ; but especially the specific instructions 
of 1 Tim. iv. 4, and more especially of Gen. i. 28. 

Nearly allied to this, the question respecting the 
origin of evil soon followed ; and as it was finally 
ascribed by the most philosophical to matter, an 
additional impulse was hence given to the errors of 
the anchorites. 

In the same and subsequent centuries, controver- 
sies of great zeal and extent were expended on the 
mode of the divine trinity, effecting nothing better 
than to embarrass the doctrine with human difficul- 
ties, which centuries have scarely removed. Hence 
sprang Arianism, whose errors, under numberless 
modifications, have infested the Christian world to 
this day. 

In the third and fourth centuries, and in other 
periods, the subject of church government has been 



145 

a ruling topic of controversy, and engaged by far 
too large a proportion of Christian zeal and intel- 
lect. 

In different periods of the church, the mode and 
subjects of baptism have engaged so much of the 
zeal of Christians, as to leave very little for the con- 
version and salvation of men. Whether a Chris- 
tian be a baptist, or psedobaptist, an advocate for 
immersion, or for sprinkling, in either case he may 
give an undue portion of zeal to this subject. 

In the sixteenth century, a controversy between 
the great German and Swiss theologians, on the 
question of a symbolical or essential divine presence 
in the eucharist, arrayed nearly the whole Protes- 
tant world as partizans under the banners of Luther 
orZuingle; consuming those energies, which ought 
to have been engaged in recovering the entire 
Christian church from the dominion of papacy, upon 
a most insignificant trifle. See Mosheim Ecc. His. 
vol. iii. pp. 255 — 260, etc. 

A wise generation will profit from the experience 
of the past. We have this advantage, that the 
boundaries of human knowledge are more accu- 
rately defined than formerly, and we can better 
judge what is important. It is our wisdom, first, to 
bestow no zeal at all upon unimportant questions ; 
secondly, to bestow upon important ones only their 
relative share. 



Note B. 



In a Unitarian tract, No. 58, of the 1st series, by 
Henry Ware, Jr., after stating that he does not ob- 
ject to the trinity of God Ci because the doctrine is 
a mystery," the writer says, " We only ask for proof 



146 

that it is taught in the Bible." Nevertheless, that 
gentleman is aware that some writers do at- 
tempt to cast odium on the divine trinity, on the 
ground of its mysteriousness, and on Trinitarians, 
for believing so much in mysteries. These are, 
however, the weapons of the less intelligent minds 
of that sect, adapted mainly to take advantage of a 
vulgar prejudice. For surely a sound and well 
educated mind cannot fail to see, that a system of 
religion from the infinite God to us finite creatures 
of yesterday, must involve mysteries ; and that the 
absence of all mystery, in any pretended religion, 
would be evidence that it is not from God, but of 
human invention. 

Mysteries in religion, as in natural science, are 
things not yet made known or knowable to us, and 
to claim that the things which God has made known 
or knowable to us pertaining to himself and his 
kingdom, are not connected with things which he 
has not made known or knowable to us, is to claim 
that we already know, or can know, all that is to be 
known — that our little minds have taken in, or can 
take in, all that is in the mind of God. Whereas, 
in the science of religion, as in all other sciences, 
we have but just begun to learn a lesson on which 
our minds are to be employed forever. 

But if there be any thing in religion, which we 
are at present incompetent to understand, where 
should we expect to find it more than in the mode 
of the Divine existence ? To understand this, must 
be one of the highest attainments made in eternity ; 
— Gabriel himself may not yet have made it. 



Note C. 



Reference is here had to a Unitarian Tract, No. 
18, by the late Rev. S. C. Thatcher, of Boston, en- 



147 

titled "The evidence necessary to establish the 
doctrine of the Trinity." The design of the writer 
is, to show that there is " a priori a strong presump- 
tion against any proposition, which apparently inter- 
feres with the doctrine of the unity of God." 
Hence he observes " there is a very high proba- 
bility, a strong previous presumption," that the doc- 
trine of the Trinity " will not be found in the Bible." 
u Every thing must be presumed against its evi- 
dence, and nothing in its favor. It will prove 
nothing for such a doctrine, that passages can be 
produced which may possibly mean something like 
it, unless it can be unequivocally shown, that they 
cannot possibly mean any thing else." A strange 
posture of mind, truly, in which to approach a reve- 
lation from God ! 

But it is not true, that the divine trinity even 
" apparently interferes with the doctrine of the unity 
of God." So far from it, the doctrine of the trinity 
necessarily implies and involves the doctrine of the 
unity of God. A man cannot be a trinitarian, with- 
out maintaining the essential unity of God. Conse- 
quently the " proposition," against which the writer 
has "a priori a strong presumption," and which 
determines his mind against the doctrine of the 
trinity, is no part of that doctrine, and has no exist- 
ence excepting in his imagination. He is at war 
with a creation of his own brain. 

To the same effect Mr. Norton says,*" "The doc- 
trine of the Trinity, and that of the union of two 
natures in Christ, are doctrines, which, when fairly 
understood, it is impossible, from the nature of the 
human mind, should be believed. They involve 
manifest contradictions, and no man can believe 

* " A Statement of Reasons for not believing the doctrines of Trini- 
tarians, concerning the nature of God, and the person of Christ. By 
Andrews Korton." p. 22. 



148 

Tvhat he perceives to be a contradiction ; " — " they 
are of such a character, that it is impossible to 
bring arguments in their support, and unnecessary 
to adduce arguments against them." So the ques- 
tion is forever put at rest by Mr. Norton, in a single 
sentence — nothing more need ever to be said about 
it, either by man or God, for it is of no use. 

Here then we have the grand reason why Mr. 
Norton, and, we believe also the great body of the 
more speculative Unitarians, reject the trinity of 
God, and the deity and humanity of Christ. They 
verily suppose that they have made the profound 
discovery, that these doctrines " are intrinsically 
incapable of any proof whatever" — that "it is im- 
possible to bring arguments in their support." 
Hence, to their minds, it is "impossible" for the 
Bible to teach them. No language can do it. Be- 
ing armed with moral omnipotence against them, 
they are prepared, nay, even compelled, by the posi- 
tion which their minds assume, either to reject the 
Bible altogether, or to distort or annihilate its lan- 
guage, rather than allow it to teach them these doc- - 
trines. For even Mr. Norton says, referring to 
those Scriptures which inculcate these doctrines, 
" We do not deny that there are expressions in 
some of these passages, which, the words alone 
being regarded, ivill bear a trinitarian sense." 

It becomes therefore of first importance to every 
inquirer after truth, inclining to the prejudice into 
which Mr. Norton and others have fallen, to look 
discriminate^ into the intrinsic nature of the doc- 
trine, till he sees clearly, that it does not involve 
any thing contradictory or incredible — that it is not 
incapable of proof; and then he is prepared to ap- 
proach the Bible in a suitable posture of mind to be 
taught. 

All human knowledge is generically comprehensi- 
ble under these three — abstract science, natural 



149 

philosophy, and moral science. This classification 
is sufficient]} 7 definite for our purpose. In abstract 
science, which is the science of abstract numbers 
and proportions — as arithmetic, algebra, geometry, 
&c. — a proposition is said to be contradictory or ab- 
surd, which involves in itself a contradiction. Thus, 
the proposition that parallel lines diverge, or that a 
half is equal to a whole, or that one is three, in- 
volves a contradiction and is absurd. 

In natural philosophy, by which is meant a 
knowledge of the laws and operations of nature, a 
proposition is incredible, which contradicts the uni- 
form experience of mankind. Thus, the proposition 
that it is the tendency of fire to freeze, or of ice to 
burn, or of terrestrial bodies to tend upwards in 
proportion to their gravity, or of the presence of 
the sun to cause darkness, &c. is an incredible 
proposition. In moral science, which is the science 
of moral relations, a proposition is incredible, which 
contradicts our moral sense. Thus, the proposition 
that a revelation from a righteous God teaches us 
that he demands of us impossibilities, or that we 
may sin with impunity, or that he will treat the 
righteous and the wicked alike in the judgment, 
&c. is a proposition morally incredible. 

These three departments of science, generically 
considered, comprehend the whole range of human 
knowledge. Every thing' demonstrably absurd, 
contradictory, or incredible, must be found in one 
of these. 

The doctrine of the trinity involves nothing con- 
tradictory or absurd in the first; for the doctrine is 
not that God is one, and also three, in the same sense. 
Were that the case, it icoull involve a contradiction, 
like the abstract proposition which asserts that a 
part is equal to a whole. But the numerical con- 
tradiction that three is one, and that one is three, is 

13 



150 

predicable only of the relation of abstract numbers 
to each other ; not of abstract numbers to any thing 
having actual existence in the universe, out of our 
own minds. Whatever has actual existence and 
properties, may of course sustain to abstract num- 
ber various relations — relations as various as its 
properties. Hence such may be the nature and pro- 
perties of an object, that it may sustain to abstract 
number the relation of one in one sense, ten in 
another, a hundred in another — and the proposition 
which should affirm this, would involve no contra- 
diction. Consequently the proposition that such 
are the nature and properties of God, that there is 
a certain sense in which he is one, and a certain 
other sense in which he is three, involves no contra- 
diction. 

Nor does the doctrine of the trinity involve any 
thing incredible in natural philosophy, that is, the 
knowledge of whatever has been ascertained to 
have actual existence — for this is a science founded 
wholly on experience ; and respecting the mode of 
the divine existence, or of any immaterial beings, 
we have as yet had no experience. 

Nor does the doctrine involve any thing incredi- 
ble in moral science ; — for there is nothing in it 
which contradicts our moral sense — nothing which 
violates the hrws of moral rectitude written on the 
conscience* 

If, then, the doctrine involve nothing contra- 
dictory or incredible, it is fraught with no intrinsic 
objection, and may be taught in the Bible as nat- 
urally as any other fact \ nor are we at liberty, as 
honest believers and interpreters of God's word, to 
turn a single passage from its legitimate meaning, 
in order to avoid it. No matter how wonderful, 
how high above us, how full of mystery and gran- 
deur the doctrine is ; this is what we are to expect 
in a revelation from God. 



151 

Note D. 

Our prescribed limits allow us only to briefly 
notice the principle Unitarian expositions of some 
of those scriptures, which we have adduced in proof 
of the deity of Christ. Those scriptures are intro- 
duced into the discourses in the common English 
version, both because it is the version with which 
every one is most familiar, and because it is emi- 
nently correct, and the best in the English lan- 
guage. 

Rom. ix. 5. " Of whom as concerning the flesh 
Christ came, who is over all God blessed forever." 

This is a passage of undisputed genuineness, 
and the translation of it is literal and perfect. Yet 
Mr. Norton* proposes to alter the pointing of the 
Greek, so as to make it read " He who was over all 
was God blessed forever." Observe now what he 
must do to evade this scripture. First, he alters 
the pointing of the Greek, as it exists in the most 
ancient pointed manuscripts. Secondly, he commits 
a philological error in respect to the phrase em 
Tiurion' Sfo;, over-all-God, which is both a classi- 
cal and Hellenestic idiom, exactly expressed in 
English idiom by the phrase supreme God, Thirdly, 
he spoils the rhetorical energy and grandeur of the 
apostle's climax, and makes him conclude his pa- 
thetic appeal to his Jewish kinsman by tamely 
asserting that l the_ supreme Being is God? — what no 
mortal doubted, and what had nothing to do with 
carrying forward his preceding thought. 

The apostle commenced the sentence by expressing 
the deep sorrow and anguish of his heart for his breth- 
ren who rejected Christ ; he informed them that he 



*" A statement of reasons for not believing the doctrines of Trin- 
itarians concernm* the nature of God and the person of Christ. By 
Andrews Norton." — pp. 145, 146. , * 



152 

could even consent to be crucified himself for them ; 
he reminded them of their distinguished privileges, 
" who are Israelites, to whom pertaineth the adop- 
tion, and -the glory, and the covenants, and the 
giving of the law, and the service of God, and the 
promises ; whose are the fathers, and of whom, in 
respect to his human nature, Christ came, who is 
over all God, blessed forever, Amen." That he 
should thus give the climax to this strong appeal, 
by asserting the divine glory of the Messiah, who 
came of their own highly privileged nation, but 
whom they rejected, is according to the best rhetori- 
cal taste ; and what a mind in sympathy with the 
lofty and burning spirit of Paul, and believing that 
Paul held to the deity of Messiah, would expect. 

Yet Mr. Norton says, in making his apology for 
altering the passage, "It must, one would think, 
strike a Trinitarian, who maintains the correctness 
of this construction and rendering, as a very singu- 
lar fact, that the title of 'God over all blessed 
forever,' which is nowhere else given to Christ, 
should be introduced thus incidentally and abruptly, 
without explanation or comment, and without any 
use being made of the doctrine." 

John i. 1 — 3, 14. "In the beginning was the 
Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word 
was God. The same was in the beginning with 
God. All things were made by him ; .and without 
him was not any thing made that was made — 
And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us." 
This passage stands also high above all controversy. 
Many have been the attempts both of sciolists and 
erudites to avoid it, but nothing has been gained. 
Mr. Norton expends more than fifty pages upon it, 
to no other effect than to show how hard it is to 
avoid the truth. J. J. Griesbach, whose expurgated 
edition of the New Testament is probably unrivaled 
for its expurgated character, at least, and is a stan- 



153 

dard authority in both continents, after saying, 
" There are so many arguments for the true deity 
of Christ, that I see not how it can be called in 
question — the divine authority of the Scriptures 
being granted, and just rules of interpretation ac- 
knowledged," observes, "The exordium of John's 
Gospel is so perspicuous, and above all exception, 
that it never can be overturned by the daring- 
attacks of critics and interpreters." [Preface to 
Vol. IT. Griesbaclfs New Testament.] 

1 John v. 20. "And we know that the Son of 
God is come, and hath given to us an understanding, 
that we may know him that is true; and we are in 
him that is true, in his Son Jesus Christ. This is 
the true God and eternal Life." This is a literal 
translation. Mr. Norton, pp. 139, 140, proposes to 
alter it by rendering the particle ev } " with," in the 
first clause and "through," in the second, and so 
make the sentence read thus, " And we are with 
him who is true through his Son Jesus Christ." 
The particle admits of both renderings ; but it is 
most according to an obvious grammatical rule, that 
Ovto; etniv, He is, or The same is, refer for its an- 
tecedent to Irjcrov XgtdTU), Jesus Christ. In that 
case the declaration of the apostle is, that Jesus 
Christ is himself "the true God and Eternal Life." 
This rendering is strengthened by the fact, that in 
the introduction of this same epistle, in a passage 
entirely unambiguous, he calls Christ " Eternal 
Life." " For the Life was manifested, and we have 
seen it, and bear witness, and shew unto you that 
Eternal Life, which was with the Father, and was 
manifested unto us." If we allow the inspired 
writfer thus to interpret his own meaning, the com- 
mon English version is correct, and it conveys a 
great thought in neat and simple language. But 
under Mr. Norton's pen, " The meaning is, that He 

13* 



154 

with whom Christians are, He who is True, is the 
True God, and the giver of eternal life." 

Mr. Norton is aware that he thus mak«s the in- 
spired penman a very bungling writer, and he apol- 
ogizes for him thus : — " Should it be said that these 
ideas are not happily expressed, I answer, it is 
evident that the author of this epistle was as un- 
skilful a writer as we might expect to find one, 
originally a Galilean fisherman." 

1 Tim. iii. 16. "God was manifest in the flesh." 
Mr. Norton, p. 131, thinks that "the reading Qsog 
(God) is spurious." But Dr. Adam Clarke, after 
himself examining the most ancient manuscripts, 
and giving the subject a very learned examination, 
says, " After seriously considering this subject, in 
every point of light, I hold with the reading in the 
commonly received text." In some of the ancient 
manuscripts 6g, or 6, who, or which, is substituted 
for Geog, God; which Dr. Clarke exhibits evidence 
from manuscripts of being an abbreviation of that 
word. Moreover if who or which be substituted in 
the place of God, this relative must have an antece- 
dent, and must refer to godliness, or mystery, or 
further back to God or church. The whole sentence 
reads thus — "That thou mayest know how thou 
oughtest to behave thyself in the house of God, 
which is the church of the living God, the pillar and 
ground of the truth. And without controversy, 
great is the mystery of godliness: God was mani- 
fest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of 
angels," &c. But what sense is there in saying 
godliness, or mystery, or the church, was manifest in 
the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, 
preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the 
world, received up to glory ? " All these facts are 
in other scriptures specifically predicated of Jesus 
Christ, and hence as before, if we allowed the 



155 

Bible to be its own expositor, the present English 
version is correct. 

Heb. i. 8, "But unto the Son he saith, Thy 
throne, O God, is forever and ever," &c. Mr. Nor- 
ton says, p. 150, "The words were originally 
addressed by the Psalmist not to Christ, but to 
God." But if we suppose them addressed to Christ, 
they were addressed to God, according to the trini- 
tarian view. The -Joth Psalm, whence these words 
are quoted, is a sublime prediction of Messiah; and 
these words, as used by the apostle, are clearly ex- 
hibited as the language of God the Father addressed 
to God the Son, expressing the stability and majesty 
of his mediatorial throne. 

John xx. 28. "And Thomas answered and said unto 
him, My Lord and my God. Jesus saith unto him, 
Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast be- 
lieved. Blessed are they that have not seen, and 
yet have believed." Observe, Christ here com- 
mends the belief of Thomas, and pronounces bles- 
sings on those who should believe him to be what 
Stephen believed him to be. 

But Mr. Norton says, p. 2*27, " Supposing that 
Thomas had believed, and asserted, that his Master 
was God himself; in what way should this affect 
our faith ? We should still know the fact on which 
his belief was founded, the fact of the resurrection 
of his Master, and could draw our own inferences 
from it, and judge whether his were well founded. 
Considering into how great an error he had fallen 
in his previous obstinate incredulity, there would 
be little reason for relying upon his opinion as 
infallible in the case." 

These may serve as specimens of anti-trinitarian 
exposition. I would be far from expressing any 
disrespect of Mr. Norton's talents and acquirements ; 
I believe them to be in many respects of a high 
order. The reason of his appearing to such disad- 
vantage in interpreting the Scriptures is, his 



156 

necessity of avoiding doctrines so explicitly taught 
there, and which cannot be avoided without doing 
great violence to language. The reason of his 
attempting to avoid these, is the a priori prejudice 
into which his mind has fallen, that they cannot 
possibly be true and no language can prove them; — 
in his own words, "They are intrinsically incapable 
of any proof whatever," — "it is impossible to bring 
arguments in their support." There is no question 
that Mr. Norton's mind navigates through the Bible 
as well as any mind could, when thus launched. 

Suppose for a moment the doctrines of the deity 
and humanity of Christ to be taught in the Bible, 
who would succeed in interpreting it better than 
Mr. Norton has, who should enter upon the work of 
exposition with his mind laboring under the preju- 
dice which dictated the following sentence ? "The 
Athanasian creed ! the doctrine of the Trinity ! 
They have a rank odor of ' the holy and apostolic 
court of the Inquisition.' Persecution, torture, 
murder, all that is malignant in bigotry, and all that 
is loathsome in hypocrisy, have followed in their 
train. And who have been the victims ? They 
have been those who have denied the truth of 
doctrines, which, from the very constitution of the 
human mind, it was impossible that their persecutors 
should have believed." " Norton's Statement," &c. 
p. 120. 

Mr. Norton is nowhere very sparing in his bestow - 
ment of the favorite epithets of bigotry, fanaticism, 
ignorance, upon the believers in the divine trinity ; 
but we have become so hardened to them, that some- 
how they do not seem to hurt us. We have no 
wish to return railing for railing, and we certainly 
have no other feelings than those of kindness and 
Christian love with which to repay such courteous 
epithets, 



157 

Note E. 

Before the art of printing was invented, in the 
fifteenth century, all the sacred writings were in 
manuscripts. Transcribing was a trade pursued 
frequently by illiterate men, who only knew how 
mechanically to make the letters, without being 
able to read a sentence. There was of course an 
hundred chances of their accidentally omitting a 
word or clause, to a single chance of their making 
one and inserting it. A word or clause thus drop- 
ped in one manuscript, would of course be wanting 
in the manuscripts copied from it. 

Moreover the doctrine of the trinity was early 
assailed by what the Scriptures call the " wisdom 
of this world." Ecclesiastical history, informs us 
(Mosheim, vol. i. pp. 180-185) that Theophilus of 
Antioch employed the term trinity to express the 
distinction in the Godhead as early as the second 
century ; and that the doctrine was then warmly 
contested. " The Christian doctrine concerning 
the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, and the two na- 
tures united in our blessed Saviour, were by no 
means reconcilable with the tenets of the sages 
and doctors of Greece, who therefore endeavored to 
explain them in such a manner as to render them 
comprehensible. Praxas, a man of genius and learn- 
ing, began to propagate these explications at Rome, 
and was severely persecuted for the errors they 
contained. He denied any real distinction between 
the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, and maintained 
that the Father, sole creator of all things, had 
united to himself the human nature of Christ. 
Hence his followers were called Monarchians, be- 
cause of their denying a plurality of persons in the 
Godhead." (Ecc. His., pp. 190-195.) 

Under such circumstances, unless conscientiously 
faithful to the plenary inspiration of the Scriptures, 
anti-trinitarians would naturally endeavor to effect 



158 

an expurgation or alteration of words and passages 
ineulcating the trinity. However this be, some 
three or four words and clauses, in which the trinity 
is inculcated, are partly altered or wanting in some 
of the ancient manuscripts, and hence their gen- 
uineness is doubted. These occur in 1 John v. 7. 
Acts xx. 28. Col. ii. 3. I have not introduced 
them in these discourses, for the proof of the doc- 
trine is abundant without them, and it were super- 
fluous to spend time in debating their genuineness. 



Note F. 



The following is from Coleridge : 

" For as a law without a lawgiver is a mere 
abstraction, so a law without an agent to realize it, 
a constitution without an abiding executive, is, in 
fact, not a law but an idea ! In the profound em- 
blem of the great tragic poet, it is the powerless 
Prometheus fixed on a barren rock. And what was 
the result? How was this necessity provided for? 
God himself — my hand trembles as I write ! Rather, 
then, let me employ the word, which the religious 
feeling in its perplexity suggests as the substitute — 
the Deity itself was declared to be the real agent, 
the actual gravitating power! The law and the 
lawgiver were identified. God (says Dr. Priestley) 
not only does but is every thing. Jupiter est 
quodcunque vides. And thus a system, which com- 
menced with excluding all life and immanent ac- 
tivity from the visible universe and evacuating the 
natural world of all nature, ended by substituting 
the deity, and reducing the Creator to a mere 
Anima Mundi : a scheme that has no advantage 
over Spinosism but its inconsistency, which does 
indeed make it suit a certain order of intellects, 



159 

who, like the pleuronecta (or flat fish) in ichthy- 
ology, that have both eyes on the same side, never 
see but half of a subject at one time, and forgetting' 
the one before they get to the other, are sure not 
to detect any inconsistency between them. 

And what has been the consequence ? An in- 
creasing unwillingness to contemplate the Supreme 
Being in his personal attributes: and thence a dis- 
taste to all the peculiar doctrines of the Christian 
faith, the trinity, the incarnation of the Son of God, 
and redemption. The young and ardent, ever too 
apt to mistake the inward triumph in the detection 
of error for a positive love of truth, are among the 
first and most frequent victims to this epidemic 
fastidium. Aias ! even the sincerest seekers after 
light are not safe from the contagion. . Some have 
I known constitutionally religious, [I speak feel- 
ingly ; for I speak of that which for a brief period 
was my own state,] who, under this unhealthful in- 
fluence, have been so estranged from the Heavenly 
Father, the Living God, as even to shrink from the 
personal pronouns as applied to the deity. Eut 
many do I know, and yearly meet with, in whom a 
false and sickly taste co-operates with the prevailing 
fashion : many, who find the God of Abraham, Isaac, 
and Jacob, far too real, too substantial ; who feel it 
more in harmony with their indefinite sensations, 

"To worship mature in the hill and valley, 
Not knowing what they love*. — " 

and (to use the language, but not the sense or 
purpose of the great Poet of our age) would fain 
substitute for the Jehovah of the Bible, 

M A sense sublime, 
Of something far more deeply interfused, 
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns, 
And the round ocean and the living air ; 
A motion and a Spirit, that impels 
All thinking things, all objects of all thought, 
And rolls through all things"! — Wordsworth," 
Cflsridge's Aids to Reflection by James Marsh, pp. 243", 244. 



160 

To similar import the same writer remarks, p. 
157, " And yet both reason and experience have 
convinced me, that in the greater number of our 
Alogi [anti-trinitarians] who feed on the husks of 
Christianity, the disbelief of the trinity, the divinity 
of Christ included, has its origin and support in the 
assumed self-evidence of this Natural Theology, 
and in their ignorance of the insurmountable diffi- 
culties which (on the same mode of reasoning) press 
upon the fundamental articles of their own remnant 
of a creed." 



Note G. 



The question naturally arises, and it is frequently 
asked, ' Can the gospel save those who reject the 
deity and atonement of Christ ? ' Robert Hall, who 
is universally acknowledged to be a man of extra- 
ordinary greatness and liberality of mind, answers 
this question thus. " With respect to the salva- 
bility of Socinians, for myself I feel no hesitation. 
Their state appears to be clearly decided by such 
Scriptures as these : ' He that seeth the Son and 
believeth on him, shall have everlasting life ; ' ' He 
that hath the Son hath life, and he that hath not the 
Son hath not life.' How can they be said to have 
the Son, who reject him in his distinguishing, his 
essential character, as the Saviour of the world ; 
and how can he be a propitiation for sin, to those 
who have no faith in his blood? When it is as- 
serted that we are justified by faith, I can under- 
stand it in no other sense than that we are justified 
by a penitential reliance on his blood and righteous- 
ness. In rejecting the most fundamental doctrine 



161 

of the gospel, the vicarious sacrifice of Christ, they 
appear to me to deny the very essence of Chris- 
tianity. Their system is naturalism, not the evan- 
gelical system ; and therefore, much as I esteem 
many individuals among them, I feel myself neces- 
sitated to look upon them in the same state, with 
respect to salvation, as professed infidels." Hall's 
Works, vol. iii. p. 256, 8vo. ed. 

It should be observed, however, as the judgment 
of this excellent man, gathered from the whole tenor 
of his writings, that the truth of the above re- 
marks lies rather against Socinianism as a system 
subversive of the gospel by rejecting the deity 
and atonement of Christ, than against individuals, 
excepting as by actually embracing that error, or by 
any other evasion, they withhold compliance with 
the plan and overtures of divine grace for the sal- 
vation of men. The same is essentially true of all 
to whom the gospel is sent, whatever be their 
theoretical creed. The tendency of error is always 
dangerous, the tendency of truth always safe ; but 
even truth cannot save us, unless we obey it. 
"Repentance towards God, and faith towards our 
Lord Jesus Christ," are the apostolic terms of 
gospel salvation. Whatever be his speculative be- 
lief, "Except a man be born again, he cannot see 
the kingdom of God." 

Reader, ponder this great subject well. You 
have an interest involved in it immeasurably sur- 
passing all other interests, which you have or can 
have in the universe. You are soon to leave this 
world, and appear before God. Christ now meets you 
as Mediator and Redeemer, he will then meet you 
as your Judge. His judgment will deliver you over 
to heaven or to hell. He will then resign up the 
kingdom to the Father. No longer on the media- 
torial throne for your salvation, if unsaved by him 
ere then, you will be unsaved forever; — 'He that 
14 



162 

is holy will be holy still, and he that is filthy will 
be filthy still.' Ages of suffering cannot atone for 
your sin, or deliver you from its iron grasp, or in 
any measure exonerate your guilty soul from the 
double condemnation of violated law and rejected 
grace. Now is the day of God's merciful forbear- 
ance ; abuse it not to your deeper ruin ;— ' Agree 
with thine adversary quickly, while thou art in the 
way with him.'— ' Behold, now is the accepted time, 
now is the day of salvation.' It will soon be over, 
and your destiny will then be fixed in an unchang- 
ing eternity. O listen, listen to the voice of God. 
— ' Kiss the Son, lest he .be angry and ye perish 
from the way when his wrath is kindled but a little. 
Blessed are all they that put their trust in him,' 

Be not deceived— ^trust not so great an interest, 
as the salvation of your soul, to the opinions and 
speculations of men — read your Bible, examine, 
meditate, pray, for yourself. — ' Give all diligence to 
make your calling and election sure ;' and may 
Gop guide you in the way of eternal life." 



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